I received this text message this morning from Twitter.
“Your task is not 2 seek 4 love but merely 2 seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” –Rumi
I spent 38 years of my life looking for love. I looked to religion. I looked to pastors. I looked to philosophy. I looked to psychology, science, science fiction, money and other people. I looked to drugs, to sex and to every combination of the above.
I looked with all my strength, with all my mental might. I sought love in every place I found myself. Surely I would find God there also.
In AA we often quote the Big Book: “I will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.” These are wise words. The seeking is part of the journey–even if we are looking for the wrong reasons. The fact that we seek is enough. The fact that we seek means we still believe there is such a thing called love.
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. –Matthew 7:7-8
The real question we might ask ourselves is this. If we truly encountered God’s love would we even recognize it? Or would we recoil like a snake threatened by the hands of the snake handler.
Forgiven by Thomas Blackshear
Would God appear in the form of a loved one or might he appear as someone we don’t like? Would Love come in the form of an angel of light or a homeless person in desperate need of our help? Would we bump into God shopping at Bed, Bath & Beyond or volunteering at the Salvation Army?
Chances are… a brush with God would make us feel uncomfortable. We will be reminded of the barriers inside ourselves–the barriers which still keep us from serving others–the barriers that still keep us from loving fully.
I am giving myself a challenge for this week, and I ask you to join me in this. Let’s pray this week for God to show up in those places in our lives where we have built up barriers to love.
I have found that love at the foot of the cross. When I look up, I see total and complete, unconditional love….only Jesus can give me that because He is my perfect sacrificial lamb.”How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand!” Wow! That’s LOVE!