The Inner Voice of Love

A friend of mine recently gave me this book by Henri Nouwen as a thank-you gift for some work that I did for his wedding. It's a collection of journal entries from the hardest, darkest time of Nouwen's life, December 1987 to June 1988. It's meant to be read slowly, savored and meditated upon. I've only read a handful of entries so far, each is a couple paragraphs to a couple pages long, and it's been rich and fulfilling and challenging reading. It puts succinct words to the core issues I'm dealing with this season--my relationship with God, with other people, with myself and my identity. It's a mixture of comfort and calling to action, even if that action is mostly just resting in God's love.

I am a restless person, so that can be a hard step of faith for me. Stepping out of my pride and fear, out of my right-ness, out of all the other things I look to to fill me up and make my life work. Taking God at His word, knowing what that even is. Something about the compromises of being human and fallen and having to love imperfectly. There is still and ever and always a perfect love, and I hope I'm re-learning to hear (and heed) His voice.

Our pastor at church started preaching on forgiveness and reconciliation last week, and he will be continuing that topic in his sermon this week. So today I'm re-listening to a Tim Keller sermon on the same theme that a good friend of mine gave to me when we were working through some issues last year. I've listened to it a handful of times since then, and it continues to be encouraging. I need it spoken into my life; I need to preach it to myself, the Gospel truth.

We'll be singing one of my favorite hymns at church tonight, "Abide With Me," a re-setting with a gorgeous new melody, so I'll close with these words by Henry Lyte:

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

Thou on my head in early youth didst smile;
And, though rebellious and perverse meanwhile,
Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee,
On to the close, O Lord, abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour.
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s power?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.