In My House, No One Goes Hungry....

Have you ever had a piece of scripture from the Bible just come up and smack you?  In a good way?  Oh man, this happened to me this week.  And it is a verse I've probably read many times, but something about reading it this time just hit me.  Here it is:

"He stood me up on a wide open field;  I stood there saved---surprised to be loved!" 
 Psalm 18:19,  the message

And that verse lead me to the old hymn, I Stand Amazed, which is featured in the video above.

It's the second half of that verse that hit me... I stood there saved-- surprised to be loved.  Take a moment and meditate on that.  Savor it.  Let it settle down into your bones.

This week I have had a couple of opportunities to hang out with some young people and have had some fairly serious talks with a few of them.  And in these talks, a theme has emerged... they are desperate to believe that they are loved by someone.  Anyone.  That they can be loved.  They are seeking love in any form that they can get it.  They want someone to tell them that they matter.  And it breaks my heart, because I know that several of them do not know that they are loved.

I don't believe that our youth are the only ones feeling this desperate need for love.  Our whole culture seems to built around this craving.  The need for endless attention = a need for love.  The need for collecting and buying material things = a need for love. I would say the even the violence we are seeing can be attributed to rage against not feeling loved.

But I know the secret-- the secret is that they are ALL desperately and greatly loved by a God who would give up His very sons life to prove that point.  And even though Jesus life story is fairly well known, for some reason, the love part of the story seems to be a deep dark secret to a lot of people.

That's why when we show people around us love through our actions, they stand there amazed and surprised.  They have bought into the lie that they are not loved.

Let me tell you today, if you are feeling unloved or unloveable... it's a LIE.  A complete and utter lie.  YOU ARE LOVED!  Let me say it again, You-- the real you, not the fake you that you present to others, the real you.  The one that has very real faults.  The you that is broken.  The you that is less than perfect.  That you.  That you is loved, and loved deeply and fully.  Just as you are.  God loves you.  He always has and He always will.

And if you know this secret, this secret of love, do your best to not keep it a secret.  You need to  share it by showing love to everyone you come into contact with. In the words of Bob Goff, you need to  "leak love."  Take a moment and remember how it felt when you finally discovered that you were loved.  In fact, it would be good for us to start each day just standing in awe in our own "wide open fields" and reflecting on the fact that we are saved and feeling yet again that heart stopping, heart mending, moment of realizing how greatly we are loved.

 I find myself wanting to just gather up these young people in my Mommy arms and hold them tight, while whispering words of the great love that God has for them.  And tell them that I love them and that they are deserving of love.  That they are seen and heard.  I can't always hug them, but I show them love through ways that teenagers understand, by talking to them, by listening to them (even when I don't understand what they are saying), and by feeding them good food.  They are welcome at my table.  They are loved in my house.  I have a saying on my wall above the door to my dining room that says, "Nella mia casa nessumo va affamato" which translates to "In my house, no one goes hungry."  It reminds me that all who come into my home will be fed good food and a steady diet of love.

That's all I have today-- a simple message.  Not even a new message.  But an important one.  One that God reminded me of this week.

I'll leave you today with a little "broader" view of Psalm 18.

"But me he caught---reached all the way from sky to sea; he pulled me out of that ocean of hate, that enemy chaos, the void in which I was drowning.  They hit me when I was down, but God stuck by me.  He stood me up on a wide-open field;  I stood there saved--surprised to be loved!  God made my life complete when I placed all the pieces before him. "  Psalm 18 16-21  the message