henri nouwen

God in me

I remember my then three year old son wrestling with theology when he asked, “Mom, if Jesus lives in my heart and I eat food, will it go near Jesus?”

I’ve had my own theological wrestlings this week about God in me as I try to wrap my mind around the words, “Abide in me and I in you.” It’s one thing for me to try to make God my dwelling place, but then He turns around and says He’s going to choose to dwell in me too.

So that’s my abide pondering for this week – the fact that God abides in me. The God of the universe lives in me. What? When I think about that, so much in me says, “Are you sure You want to do that?

“I mean, I know me. I know that mixed up in all the redemption You’ve done there’s still a fair amount of depravity. I’m a sinner, God. Why would you want to do that?”

But that’s the great and awesome mystery. He’s not a God who redeems from afar. He gets right up in there and transforms from the inside out. He dwells in me while still renovating me into a place more fit for a king.

I’ve been asking Him to help me grasp this more deeply. I like the way Henri Nouwen puts it in his book Return of the Prodigal Son, “I am called to enter into the inner sanctuary of my own being where God has chosen to dwell . . . it is the place where I am held safe in the embrace of an all-loving Father who calls me by name and says, ‘You are my beloved child, on whom my favor rests.'”

It makes abiding even more appealing to know He’s already met me more than halfway. It’s a place where I can rest, trust, be loved. He abides in me. Wow.

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Choosing to Abide

So I’ve been trying to figure out how exactly I’m going to do Abide this year. What does it look like to dwell in God? How do I do that practically speaking? I keep imagining myself trying to abide, which feels about the same as when you try to think about something and then you can’t think of anything at all. You know that feeling?

What I do know is that what I want is to learn to settle in to a more solid place in my soul. I feel like I’ve lived there before, and much of it came from an intentional intake of truth, truth that told me who I am and who He is and where I stand with Him. Henri Nouwen talks about it in his book Inner Voice of Love,

“You have to trust the place that is solid, the place where you can say yes to God’s love even when you do not feel it. Right now you feel nothing except emptiness and the lack of strength to choose. But keep saying, ‘God loves me, and God’s love is enough.’ You have to choose the place over and over again, and return to it after every failure.”

I feel like the last year I’ve been focused outwardly, and not in a good way. Not in an other-centered way, but in a survival mode-is there life out there-kind of way. This quote reminds me that the solid place is inside, where He dwells, and I have to choose to go to that place again and again, not only after every failure but even after every success.

So here’s to choosing to abide in the solid place. What are you going to do to start focusing on your word of the year?

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The True Self

Years ago, a friend of mine and I had a conversation about being comfortable in our own skin. It was about more than just body image; it was the idea that we could be completely settled into who we are as people. We wanted to be completely ourselves, without apology, without wondering what others thought. We agreed that we weren’t quite there yet.

I can’t say I live there all the time now either, but I have certainly grown in it. I do know that how accepting I am of myself is in direct correlation with how much time I spend listening to the Father’s heart for me, and resting in who He says I am.

My victory for Saturday is that I was me. It was a lot like how I felt when I wrote this post last spring (except for the whole day, and not just a dental appointment). This was great because I was away for the weekend with several women I was just getting to know. It could have been difficult, not knowing how I fit or how to navigate these new relationships, but the quality of these women and the content they chose for our time together made it the easiest thing to just bring all of me, uncensored, to the table.

This feels like a greater victory during transition, because transition can throw your whole identity into question. I’ve been learning through this time that I have to go back more frequently than usual to who I am in Him. I’m reminded of this quote from one of my favorite authors, Henri Nouwen,  “As long as I keep running about asking: ‘Do you love me? Do you really love me?’ I give all power to the voices of the world and put myself in bondage because the world is filled with ‘ifs’.” This temptation grows stronger in transition because the voices in the world have changed and it’s easy to forget that who we truly are hasn’t.

I’ll close with another quote from another favorite author, Brennan Manning, who said, “Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion.” Every day is a victory when I remember this.

What are you calling victory today?

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