Daily Lesson for April 20, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from 1 John 3 verses 19 through 21:

19 By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; 20 for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. 21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God.

And Psalm 25 verse 11:

"For your name's sake, O Lord,
pardon my guilt, for it is great."

The joy of the spiritual journey is the coming to know ourselves beloved.  To be beloved is to accept that God is love and that we are the object of that love. It is a joyous thing to be beloved because there is no selfishness in its acceptance. It is just "right" -- like when two people are in love. This is why the love of marriage is such a wonderful metaphor for God's love.  It is beautiful to give love and to receive and the receiving of love is a gift of love in return. We let ourselves be loved, and in doing so we are then loving the lover back. As the psalmist says, we accept our pardon and forgiveness (the ultimate sign of love) not selfishly, but "for [God's]  name's sake".

Bernard of Clairvaugh put all this quite beautifully in what he called The Four Loves. He said we first begin by loving ourselves for ourselves' sake. Then we move on to loving God for ourselves' sake. Then we progress to love God for God's sake. But, finally, we come to a place of loving ourselves again -- but now for God's sake.

It is God's joy to love us. Let us make God's joy complete by accepting that love and knowing and loving ourselves as we are -- as God's beloved. 

A poem for reflection from Raymond Carver:

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.