I have been doing a lot of reading the last few years. William Barclay’s Commentaries of the New Testament, C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity and now his sermons compiled under the title The Weight of Glory, John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul and many more.

But I note The Weight of Glory and Wild at Heart in particular which will lead me through the rest of this writing.

I picked up The Weight of Glory at the last Walk to Emmaus where I was blessed to coach. Close beside it on the table was Wild at Heart which I had already read. These are two very different books but they collided in my head today and caused this writing.

I began reading the Lewis sermon upon returning from the Walk. As usual Lewis took a little time to warm up to his task, but when he got going what I read had to be one of the most beautiful statements about God ever produced outside of the Bible.

Lewis talks about our going to heaven and receiving:

 “…the parable of the divine accolade, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”

That is God thanking us for our belief in Him.

And then Lewis makes this unbelievable assertion:

“… It is written that we shall “stand before” him, shall appear, shall be inspected. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God… to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness… to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son- it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which can hardly sustain. But so it is.”

I have read and re-read this 4-5 times over. I read it out loud to my wife Suzy. I now really believe that God loves me. Because I chose to have faith in Him and to believe in Him.

I went peacefully to sleep last night.

One of my daily devotions is to stand in my personal Waterfall of Forgiveness each day. This is a process that I learned going through Choices training over 9 years ago, and I have held true to this for all but a few hurried days over these last 9 years. In the shower is cleanliness. The sound of the shower blocks out the rest of the world leaving a period of quiet. I pray for my family and friends and everyone in need of prayer. Many times the prayers lead to a new path of discovery as the prayer takes on a life of its own.

Today I thought: God wants me to convert one person into belief in Jesus Christ. I thought about all of the people I had come into contact with and had I an effect of them coming to Christ. I wasn’t sure I could say that. I’m not sure I even knew how to convert someone to Christ or if could even do it if given the opportunity.

Then I thought about the Prodigal Son. There he was wallowing in sin and degradation, coming to his senses, coming home to His father with a new heart and being immediately forgiven and brought back into covenant love of his family.

Then I thought about the robber up on the cross next to Jesus. He was lifted to Heaven, because the robber believed in Jesus and Jesus was going to be able to use him so everyone everywhere would understand His Grace.

Then I understood, Jesus just wants me.

And then I heard it for the first time just as John Eldredge did, God saying to me:

“I am your friend.”

Somehow my knees didn’t buckle. I somehow threw out my arms to keep from falling. I stood and cried, deep racking sobs. Even in the shower my tears were so heavy that I could taste the salt in the tears and had to spit it out.

I have no idea how long I stood there crying, trembling. But sometime, somehow… “the peace that passes all understanding” came over me.

I spent the rest of the day in a heightened awareness of God’s presence in our lives.

And, now I can say with some degree of certainty that all God wants from each of us is a personal relationship, so that He can be our friend and hold our hand and tell you and me: ”Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”

This entry was posted on Monday, March 12th, 2007 at 9:22 am and is filed under Choices, Emmaus, Methodism, RMC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.