I’ve already run for dear life straight to the arms of God.
PSALM 11:1 (Day 12 of the Daily Message)

This past weekend we talked about living in the reality of being God’s “dearly loved children.” Most of us understand the idea of being children. We were once kids. Some of us have kids. But, for a lot of us, it seems, we’ve got no real concept of what it means to be “dearly loved.” Consequently, most of how we view what God intends for our relationship with Him centers around our ability to be good, do good, and generally try not to ask for too much. But, that’s not how dearly loved children live.

I had a number of conversations with people after church last weekend (as did the Mariners staff) about this idea. So many of us have broken relationships with our own dads. Because our first and most lasting impression of who God is, stems from the relationship with our own fathers, a lot of us are in need of repair. We’re longing to be understood and heard. We’re longing to live in the reality of being God’s loved children. It turns out, that is the critical component in all of our other relationships. Being deeply loved enables us to deeply love.

It is my prayer that you would know this kind of love. It is my hope that you wouldn’t settle for bland religious moralism. There are far too many people masking deep loneliness in wonderful and admirable veneers of career, beauty, parenting, goodness, and hard work. This week, consider that you are God’s dearly loved child; that in Jesus we don’t have to live as orphans, we can be known and loved the way we were intended to be.

I’m looking forward to this weekend as Doug Fields continues in our series on relationships called Beautiful Mess. Continue to be the great invitational and inclusive community that we are by bringing people who, like us, are a “beautiful mess.”

-Jeff

P.S.: For those of you who were here this past Sunday…
I mailed the picture to my dad.