Lent Reflection, Day 30, April 4

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
John 13:34

Additional Reading: 1 John 4:7-21

This prayer from Henri Nouwen's book, Show Me the Way, help put into words a lesson God’s been teaching me:

Dear Lord,
Show me your kindness and your gentleness,
you who are meek and humble of heart,
So often I say to myself, "The Lord loves me,"
but very often this truth does not enter
into the center of my heart.

Let these weeks become an opportunity for me
to let go of all my resistances to your love
and an occasion for you to call me closer to you.
Amen.

When I stop and take a few minutes, when I’m honest with myself, I realize how easy is it for me to "know" that God loves me yet so hard to "live" from a place that is rooted in that reality. The very fact that God loves me … do I let it enter the “center of my heart?”

Why is it so hard for me to accept God's love? And does that say something about my ability to love others. The reading for today reminds me that, "we love because God first loved us." Could it be that I will be completely unable to express real love to others until I can first allow God to express love to me?

Is my identity rooted in the fact that I am a beloved child of God? This fact makes me who I am, enables me to experience change to become who God desires, and it is this fact that makes genuine, fulfilling relationships possible.