Can we? Do we even know what loving God looks like and feels like

- not just taking comfort in him as an idea,
not just believing in him as a possibility,
not just worshiping him (because there was never a man or woman yet who didn't have to worship something, so why not God?)
but actually loving him:
wanting at least to be near him,
wanting at least to do things for him,
because that is the least of what love seems to mean?
-- FrederickBuechner.

It's too long for a quote for me. It's an invitation from God to truly love him. And it was one of my questions of the day to him. I was thinking about how Buechner found out that he loved God. It was when he was in his most weakness state, that he desired to be with God, wanting to love God, not out of his needs but out of love.

Buechner told the story of the feeling of lost, grieve, over someone who was so close to his heart, someone he loved the most who were dying, to think that devastation of losing the person was just unbearable, which he described as "the wilderness". It was one of those moments when you just don't feel that God was around, to listen to his story and knowing that he was in pain. In that wilderness he felt like he wanted to be with God, to be near him and to do something for him.

Buechner had another saying/quote that I think is related with the quote I used, and in my particular walk with God, is very true. It says, "Pay mind to your own life, your own health, and wholeness. A bleeding heart is of no help to anyone if it bleeds to death."

I want to do things for God, but at the same time, I need healing left and right, I have more room to grow. I believe that God can use me where I am. Over dinner, Bethany read to me a beautiful metaphor from MaxLucado book, I forgot what the title was. But Lucado was talking about several candles who refuse to be lighted and to be moved to light the room, the sole purpose of candles, with various reasons. One thought it needs to learn about wick preservation, one thought it needs more meditation to avoid wind, and the other one think that they are not ready. And in the end, it is confirmed that those candles were bought from a closed church down the street.

From a closed church down the street.

It is easy for me to get comfortable in a community with good friends and brothers and sisters in Christ, there's nothing feel like it, there's nothing feels like you're accepted the way you are, to be comfortable in my own skin, and there's nothing feels like you can say out loud that you love God and no one judge you of being a christian freak. And forgot about going out there and tell people that Jesus loves them.

It is easy to get so comfortable inside church and gets so inclusive inside programs, programs, and programs, which I believe is important, although, I believe it is to be less important than reaching out to others. God is out working to set things right and the church should be his hands and feet to make things right, right now, not tomorrow, not in heaven, but right now.

It is also not easy to serve in solitude. Especially when you put expectation on people and not on God. I should know this. It should reminds me of the many rejections, lack of appreciation, and all that. The mistake is not on other people, but on us who put expectation when love is not supposed to be like that. Love is supposed to pour out of abundance and overflows from our hearts, without expectation. God help me to work on this in my heart today.

That's sound familiar for me. It sound familiar that sometimes I have excuses not to just show up at an outreach, or to accept invitation to lead, or just to be the answer of someone's prayer. It is easy for us to give the reason that "we're bleeding ourselves, we cannot help you" kind of thing. But at the same time, it is true when we're really bleeding, we can't help other people. Growth needs to happen inward and outward, and it will happen when we step forward out of our comfort zone.