Daily Lesson for November 3, 2014

Today's daily lesson comes from Psalm 56 verses 9 through 11:

9 Then my enemies will turn back
in the day when I call.
This I know, that God is for me.
10 In God, whose word I praise,
in the Lord, whose word I praise,
11  in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.
What can man do to me?

To arrive at a place of complete peace about one's circumstances in life and the knowledge that God is for us and that that is enough is to be set free from all fear and literally find ourselves in God's eternal love. For it is often said that hatred is the opposite of love; but that is not true. Fear is the opposite of love. And "perfect love  (knowing perfectly that we are perfectly loved by God) casts out all fear."

To live in this love is to be set free from the fear of all rejection, failure, rebuke, scorn, belittling, hatred, judgment, and ultimately even death. Or as St. Paul put it, "If God is for us, who can be against us?  Who will separate us from the love of God?  . . . He who did not spare his own son."

This past weekend we celebrated All Saints Day, remembering all the saints who have gone before us. I remembered specifically Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed by the Nazis as an enemy of the state. He was stripped naked and led into the execution field where he was hanged on the gallows. It was all intended to shame the prisoner; but in fact Bonhoeffer was not the prisoner. He was one of the freest men who ever lived. For he knew his God was for him; and in God he trusted and was not afraid.

If we could have 1/50th of that we'd really be something else.