Abiding in the love of God is our only hope, the only true home for our hearts. It’s not that we mentally acknowledge that God loves us. It’s that we let our hearts come home to him, and stay in his love. MacDonald says it this way: When our hearts turn to him, that is opening the door to him … then he comes in, not by our thought only, not in our idea only, but he comes himself, and of his own will. Thus the Lord, the Spirit, becomes the soul of our souls … Then indeed we are; then indeed we have life; the life of Jesus has … become life in us … we are one with God forever and ever.
(The Heart of George MacDonald)
Or as St. John of the Cross echoes,
O how gently and how lovingly dost thou lie awake in the depth and centre of my soul, where thou in secret and in silence alone, as its sole Lord, abidest, not only as in Thine own house or in Thine own chamber, but also as within my own bosom, in close and intimate union. (Living Flame of Love)
This deep intimate union with Jesus and with his Father is the source of all our healing and all our strength. It is, as Leanne Payne says, “the central and unique truth of Christianity.”.
And that’s the memo.
By John Eldredge from Wild at Heart