We should love Jesus more than anything. When we truly love Jesus more than anything, he can provide us comfort in everything because he loves us and chooses to be so dearly near to us, his beloved. “For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand (Ps. 95).” Jesus’ love is the only love that can truly satisfy the longings of our heart. It is the only love which can heal us and, like salve, remedy our brokenness, pain, and famished souls. In his gentleness, he never ceases to call us toward himself, each instance of time a nudging of his spirit to redirect our affections to him in intimate eternity.

Jesus taught us, saying, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry (John 6)” – might we learn to feast on the only food which delights the soul and nourishes the heart. “I have food to eat that you know nothing about,” said Jesus, in perfect relation with the Father; and because of Jesus, we have food to eat that we long for the whole world to taste, in him alone. Only when we allow our affections to be painstakingly carved and honed, like marble before the sculptor, and we let Jesus, with hammer and chisel, break off every worldly care, attachment, and desire, shaping us into the person who, like himself, can say, “I have food to eat that this world knows nothing about,” only then can we truly find this promised rest, and feast on this wholesome bread. We often rely on God to beam down strength into us in a moment, but this relational God we serve desires to see us, the apple of his eye, retreat from worldly things and run to him, being found neatly tucked under the shadow of his wings, drinking from ever-flowing streams of living water. This is the experiential reality of our theology.

We can be so occupied with the stream of life that presents itself to our senses. The resurfacing past, the looming wave of the future, and the present we avoid, often lead us into weeks, months and years where we never once distance ourselves from ourselves, and from the onslaught of time and change, pain and anxiety, all in the name of ‘responsibility’. In every life, there is much in which we would rather have circumstances be one way instead of another, but “today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” Today, allow God to console you. “O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me (Ps. 62).” When we are weak, only then are we truly strong. When Christ is all we have, only then do we seem to get out of his way, and let him love us. “My heart is not proud, Lord, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother is my soul within me (Ps. 131).”

We never consented to the difficulty which this life brings with it, but we can consent to the all-encompassing, unavoidable, healing presence of God welcomed into all things. Thomas Keating describes how “consent is the greatest act of the will”. We can let God transform our lives not by wrestling with reality, but by submitting our reality to God. Often, this is done gently, silently, without words, with a shut door and solitude: “My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning (Ps. 130).” We cannot wrestle with reality and win, but we can consent to reality, and invite God into all things, and in peace know that he “works all things together for the good of those who love him (Rom 8:28).” We can use our will not to postpone and avoid reality, but instead become deeply embedded in reality, knowing that “we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God (Rom 8:26-27).”

Jesus cannot love the person we pretend to be. And we can only find Jesus in the life we actually live, not the life, or lives, we wish we did. By availing our whole self to the Lord, each day, body and soul, we know that He will, through slow, persistent transformation, conform us, His saints, to the image of Christ – it has been predestined (Rom 8:30). And as we set aside all of our claims and demands on this world and its people, choosing instead to consent to God working in this world, it makes me pray that we might receive life as Jean Pierre de Caussade writes: “all that happens to me becomes bread to nourish me, soap to cleanse me, fire to purify me, a chisel to carve heavenly features on me. Everything is a channel of grace for my needs. The very thing I sought everywhere else seeks me incessantly, and gives itself to me by all created things.” “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge (Ps.19).”

“Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matt 11:28-30).”

Let us sign off with Thomas à Kempis, from his Meditations on Death: “In life and death keep close to Jesus and give yourself into his faithful keeping; he alone can help you when all others fail you. He is of such a kind, this beloved friend of yours, that he will not share your love with another; he wishes to have your heart for himself alone, to reign there like a king seated on his rightful throne. If only you knew the way to empty your heart of all things created! If you did, how gladly would Jesus come and make his home with you! When you put your trust in men, excluding Jesus, you will find that it is nearly all a complete loss. Have no faith in a reed that shakes in the wind, don’t try leaning upon it – mortal things are but grass, remember, the glory of them is but grass in flower and will fall. Look only at a man’s outward guise and you will quickly be led astray; look to others to console you and bring you benefit, and as often as not, you will find you have suffered loss. If you look for Jesus in everything you will certainly find him; but if it’s yourself you’re looking for, it’s yourself you’re going to find, and that to your own hurt, because a man is a greater bane to himself, if he doesn’t look for Jesus, than the whole world is, or the whole host of his enemies.”

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen (Eph 3).”

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