On Wishing for Rain as I Stand in the Desert

From Life After God:

"Now - here is my secret: I tell it to you with an openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God - that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love."
-Douglas Coupland

I sit in my relatives' dining room/office listening to this one Ron Pope song on repeat. It reminds me of school, of prayer and Bible searching, of lying on a blanket next to one of my best friends in our candle lit lounge, listening to a tiny boy playing this song on the guitar. It reminds me of writing love over and over again, self-conscious of how loud the pages were when turned, my hand cramping terribly.

Ready, set: this is my favorite passage on love. It's amazing. But it's just "a drop in the ocean" of the enormity of God's love, and how incapable we really are to understand it.

From the words of John, the disciple that Jesus loved:

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother."
1 John 4:7-21

The Gospel is all about love: the love the Father has for His Son, and for us to be willing to make such a sacrifice; the love of Jesus for the suffering and faithfulness of His life (what an example He is to us all); and the love that we are to reflect with our very lives because we abide in God, and He in us. Dude, we get to live in God, and He lives in us... tightest thing EVER!

Oh man, do I love you right now :)

The Beatles were so wise to say "All you need is love." It's epically true. We cannot have pure, perfected love without knowing our Savior; through knowing Him, love becomes an inevitable core for life (or so I've discovered). Therefore, all we need is love, because Jesus is love.

"You are my heaven..."


Te amo.