God's Calling ~ Knowing God's Name

 

I pray you have found the reflections this week meaningful.  I pray that the Divine names we have already explored have caused new insights and ideas within you.  More than that, I pray that the images/descriptions/names of God have been experienced in real ways in your life this week.  Today, we turn to the final way the New Zealand Lord’s Prayer describes God:

Loving God

God is love.  I am taken by the Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis’ description of God’s fierce love as inclusive of all.  God’s love as moving us toward compassion, care for ourselves, others, and the world.  God’s love is at the center and core.  As Rob Bell says, “We shape (name/describe) our understanding of God and then our understanding of God shapes us.”  In other words, if God is judgmental, this give us permission to be judgmental.  If God is justice-seeking, then we will be justice seeking.  If God is Father and Mother, we will see all parenting as part of who God is.  If God is the Source, we will search for God swirling each day in our ordinary life.  If God is a Pain-bearer and Life-giver and Earth-maker and Eternal Spirit, so will our hearts yearn for encounter and experiences of God in all these ways.

Moreover…because we are in the image of God ~ you and me ~ so we will seek prayerfully to embody these images.  When we name God in this prayer, we name our deepest Divine self too. 

Please re-read that last paragraph.  We don’t just name God, we name our prayer for who we want to become because God is not distant or disconnected ~ God is working in our lives shaping us more and more to reflect the Sacred.  That is what this whole week is about.

That is what the story of Moses is about.  God is I AM ~ present tense ~ God in this moment.  God is love in this moment.  God is calling us to do/be/incarnate/embody/embrace the same.  This is what it means to not just talk about good news, but to BE the good news, especially today.

May the love of God enfold you, hold, be embraced and embodied by you as we continue to explore the ways God is calling us to each be God’s people in such a time as this.  Amen.