I believe that God is love. He - (I don't think that God is limited to one gender, I think that since we are created in His image both male and female the coming together of man and woman greater exemplifies the character of God-but I use the pronoun He, because it's just easier)- He is so much more- but ultimately love. I don't think that He's far off, rather SO near- tangibly expressing that love in both the extravagant and the most minute of details. Always communicating and if we are just willing to notice we'd be able to enter into some pretty awesome conversations. I believe that He has SO much for us. He has so much to give, and draw out within us.
I think that we are His works of art, and He is so invested, in seeing us learn, grow, and meet our full potential. He is committed. I feel like each of us embody certain characteristics of Him, and that the entirety of the universe is filled with the anticipation of us becoming all that He's created us to be. And first and foremost (aside from what we DO) that anticipation built up around us knowing who we truly are- sons and daughters of the living God. Sons and daughters of our King! And with Him being King- and us being his BELOVED children- there is an inheritance with that, an authority that we have on this earth now and in the age to come.
As His children, not only are we taken care of by Him, but empowered to create or reshape life both in the tangible realm and the unseen. Partnering with Him as powerfully creative life forces, since He has come to give us life and life abundantly. I think that we are unsettled with things pertaining only to this realm as the longings we hold within our hearts can only truly be satisfied within our connection with Him. I think that matters of our hearts can hinder that connectedness with Him- not from His standpoint, as I believe His heart is ALWAYS for us, and He is always pursuing us in love. Rather, from our temporal inability to to let go of whatever we are holding and embrace him. (Like in the Garden when God was looking for Adam and he had been hiding.)
So I think that sin separates us from God, not because God can't get his hands dirty, but because we spend so much effort distancing ourselves due to shame. I think that the purpose of the law was to exemplify how much we couldn't do this life within our own strength and that we are dependent upon God. I think that the commandments were things to help us govern our hearts, and the life that we share with others- a template for how to love well. That this life is about loving God, ourselves, and others with all that we are. And I think that that's where Jesus comes in.
I believe that we encounter a triune God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And because we can tend to get so wrapped up in performance and the tallies either for or against us, that He came to walk among us- show us how to live dependently upon God, and to shake up everything we ever clung to (whether that be people, places, profession, ideas, etc). He showed us how to truly live in the laying down of His life. He demonstrated that there is life in the laying down of our lives. THAT is love. Emptying out yourself for another person. (but not from that needy I don't value myself but I value you to give up all that I am for you type of way. But from a knowing and experiencing your place of power and surrendering that completely to another). I feel like the reality of life entails learning to live as we are. LOVED. Outrageously and relentlessly loved. And from that place of being loved, loving others. I see community playing a vital role within this. The relationships with our family and friends being both the soil and the tools for this love to develop and grow. These relationships both reveal the truth of what love is, and what it is not. But that ultimately God is above all things, in Him all things hold together. Our relationships, our lives. And our time here we're learning to trust that. To trust Him.
