glorycloud's Diaryland Diary

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to be possessed by the one loved is bliss

"Knowledge of "that good which is God" begins from the place where we lack experience of it. Psalm 63:1, "My flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land." This perfectly describes the "bad situation" in which we find ourselves. The "day and weary land," however, is the means by which God increases desire for and love for God's self. Augustine continues, "Sometimes it may happen that he trains us by letting us feel the pinch, but that is because he wants us to love him all the more, and save us from becoming decadent through excess, and forgetting him." When we love him all the more, we recognize that "[his] steadfast love is better than life. . . My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast" (Ps 63:3,5). There is no object worthier of love than God. In this life, insofar as we are immersed in the church's liturgy and faithfully follow the Lord Jesus, are we able to see with the eyes of the heart our eschatological inheritance, God himself. "We are to possess him," preaches Augustine, "and be possessed by him, for all eternity." To be possessed by the one loved is bliss. This love seeks us tenderly, "before ever we began to love God! And if before we loved God, we were so dearly loved by him that he made his coequal Son human for our sake, what must he be reserving for us now that we have come to love him?" Our love for God is occasioned by God's love for us, that the Father whose coequal Son became human for our sake. Again, our love for God rests on God's love of and happiness in himself. Properly speaking, God does not desire us because God has need of us. God's love of us is good because God seeks and desires us for his own sake, because God knows that there is nothing better for us than himself. Without a rich account of the pure act of being that is God, it is all too easy to conclude that God's love is not actually true, that God's love for us is the means by which God secures something for himself. Thankfully, that is not the case: God desires that we love him because God is completely and fully love in se. However, God cannot be loved as the good he is if our hearts are not in the right place. Indeed, the placement of our hearts is a serious matter. A clear, truthful, and disciplined unfolding of the preeminent goodness of God, especially its loveable character, will always point to the need for a holy heart. Love that is leavened by the Psalter's testimony " loves the bridegroom [Jesus Christ] alone, and loves him for himself, disinterestedly." pg. 42,43 'The Lord Is Good' by Christopher R. J. Holmes

2:01 p.m. - 2021-08-28

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