A Moment of Reflection

Greetings brothers and sisters in Christ,

May you this day enjoy true communion with the triune God.

I have pondered what to write of late. My heart and mind have been centered on God's love toward me, in me, and through me back to Him and to others, His love resident in others, His love active throughout the world throughout all time, and what God’s active love in a particular individual looks like as it sifts and separates the old earth-bound self from all that is of grace from God (the new self, Christ in me/in you). This manner of thought and reflection has been part of my life daily for many years, especially as it pertains to the difference between lust (hidden or open) and love, and still I stand amazed at God's love, confess I fall short of acknowledging and giving His love through my life to others, and I continually struggle to get my mind and heart around His love towards fallen and sinful humanity. The more I see and think I comprehend, the greater the wonder of it all.

I have comforted myself recently by recognizing that if I could one day say “I comprehend (in fullness or in complacency) God's love,” then I've the wrong view of it and take it in too human a form. It is by distinguishing God's love from any expression humanly that I begin to actually see and understand Him more. I am thus drawn deeper into communion with God as Trinity. For, as the scriptures say, the love of God is beyond understanding. His love is known experientially, not merely by the understanding. One must, as an individual, learn and know God's love personally.

Do we, you and I Christian, have some things wrong in our understanding about God, His love, and our relations with Him, our Christian lives lived before and with others, that at death we'll suddenly see (if given the grace and time for reflection at death), and seeing will we have such clarity of our lives that we'll spend our final moments in sadness and regret, wishing we had been different people than we know ourselves to be? Who will you inescapably acknowledge yourself to be when you transition into His presence? Who would you, today, like to see yourself as instead?

May I share with you the following account (the degree of fact or fiction I do not know) of a lady married to a pious man named Paul Gerhardt, who himself is (in fact) one of Germany's noblest hymn writers of all time, was a faithful preacher of God's word and shepherd of God's people, the life of which has inspired me to think and desire "living by conscience" as a rule, and whose story with his dear wife, even if represented with some fiction, is a life to which any Christian should feel deep kinship. From her death bed, Mary speaks:

"The picture of my life has never stood before me as it does now; it seems as if I had received clearer eyes, and could penetrate the darkness of my earthly pilgrimage, and see down into the very bottom of my heart and conscience. Ah! dear husband, this is not a cheering sight for me. I behold nothing but imperfections; I see that my sins are more than the sands on the seashore. Alas! how often have I comforted myself with false hopes! How often imagined that I had done well! How often have I reminded the Lord of my labors and toils, that he might reward me for them! But now all at once I see that I rested in a false peace."

Dearly beloved of God, consider these words from Mary, a pious woman with actual life struggles beyond what you and I will likely ever experience. May you this day quiet yourself before your God to whom you will stand, a moment when you will know as you are known by Him, and at least ponder where in your heart you possess the foundations of false peace. Casting those idols away, those grounds of false peace, you will have more of Christ and His peace, and you will spare yourself at death sorrowful reflections and regret.

Move toward God, dear Christian. Flee that which is of earth, that which perishes, that which cannot satisfy the soul.