One voice says, "You're loved." The other says, "Prove it."

Why is it that the voice that says, "Prove it," seems deafeningly loud, and the voice that says, "You're loved," seems whispering at best—mocking at worst?

Isaac has called this series, "This Is Not A Test," because usually, our lives feel like one. This entire existence sometimes feels like nothing more than a long mess of years to simply, by whatever means possible, justify that we are okay. That we are worth something. That we are useful enough to breathe this world's oxygen. We're trying to meet some proverbial standard, convinced that if we just have enough people around us that think we're cool or helpful or brilliant or handsome...that we'll have passed the test.

The problem, though, is that this is NOT a test. There is no test.

We are loved because we just are. Not because we've passed the test. And we certainly don't need to prove it to anyone else.

We may, however, need to convince ourselves of it.

We (or, I, rather. I won't project my own shortcomings onto all of you) walk around with all this head-knowledge about the love of God, but there are many times that I live as if life were a test. As if my every action or inaction is an essay question and I have to articulate what it is about me that makes me whole.

Yesterday afternoon I saw X-Men 3: The Last Stand, and was convicted (Yes, convicted.) by one line. Charles and Logan were talking about Jean, and Charles was explaining ethically and scientifically why he had done what he'd done. Logan kept challenging his reasoning, and finally Charles looked at him calmly and confidently, and said kindly, "I don't have to explain myself to you." It wasn't defensive, it wasn't angry. He simply trusted and was secure in the fact that he'd done the rightest thing he possibly could.

If only I could be that secure in my identity as a child of God. If only I could come awake to reality, as opposed to living in this imagined oppression.

Perhaps it starts with that: the realization that reality is that in Christ, our identity is not up for grabs. The rest is a dream...a non-reality. About halfway through Isaac's talk tonight a song by the David Crowder Band kept scrolling through my mind—Come Awake. Let's come awake to reality: we are God's. And he doesn't need us to explain ourselves to be his.

Come Awake, by David Crowder Band
Are we left here on our own? Can you feel when your last breath is gone? Night is weighing heavy now—be quiet and wait for a voice that will say, "Come awake from sleep, arise! You were dead—become alive. Wake up; wake up! Open your eyes. Climb from your grave into the light."

Bring us back to life.

You are not the only one who feels like the only one. Night soon will be lifted, friend—just be quiet and wait for the voice that will say, "Come awake from sleep, arise! You were dead—become alive. Wake up; wake up! Open your eyes. Climb from your grave into the light."

Rise, rise, rise, rise, rise, rise, rise, rise, rise—to life. Rise, arise to life! Arise, arise, arise, rise, rise, arise, rise, shine, shine, oh... SHINE! (wake up wake up) The light will shine! (wake up wake up) Rise—light will shine. (wake up wake up) Shine, shine, shine.

He's shining on us now.

deal with it

Tonight Isaac prayed, "God, protect your love from turning into a cliché." What a danger. It all starts out well-meaning. We use words to communicate sentiment, we pass along good news with expressions of joy. And we press into those words, writing the truth of them on our hearts...and then before long it just becomes part of the landscape, getting lost because we see it, know it, feel it, exist in it. And one day we wake up and realize that the most profound verbage in human history has been reduced to a bumper sticker. God loves me. That's nice. It doesn't even make my heart skip a beat.

How sad, because God loves me is freaking profound. The creator of all that we see, feel, and know takes pleasure in my everyday existence. The commander of angel armies giggles when I trip and fall. The God who created history, stands outside of time, and knows all future is heartbroken at the smallest of my tears. God—Yahweh, El Shaddai, I AM...loves—likes, cherishes, respects, digs...me—the product of his craftmanship, breath of life, molding and encouraging. He who made galaxies and universes put himself on a small, blue planet in the Milky Way—to live a human life and to die—just so he could hang out with me for eternity. Because coffee with me, frisbee with me, Nintendo with me, wrestling with truth with me, crying with me, working with me...that's his idea of a good time.

Girls, you know how guys cringe at the thought of going shoe shopping with us? God is running to the car ahead of us just to spend time with us. Guys, you know how our eyes glaze over when you start telling us about the details of your job? God is riveted in his seat just to hear what you have to say.

The devotion that he has for us is something that we simply cannot describe with words, nor understand with our minds. The most we can do is taste glimpses that leave us speechless, facedown or dancing, in worship. The best thing we can do is rest in it. Rest. In. It.

Remain in it. Be calm in it. Breathe in it. Hinge your life on it. Define yourself by it. Exist within it. Let it change everything.

You know God loves you. But do you know what that means? If verbage is getting in your way, then scrap the word love. Let God show you how he feels. The bottom line is that the God of the universe catches his breath when you simply look in his direction. Deal with it.

[Below is the full text of the letter that Isaac wrote to give new words to what's become a bumper sticker. He wrote this letter from Isaac as if he understood the love of God, to the Isaac that he is now. Put your name in the greeting instead of Isaac's, and just soak it in.]

Isaac,
Where to begin... He outdid Himself when He thought you up. To describe His posture toward you is to tell of One who is hopelessly smitten. There is nothing He reveres more than your company. You are prized and cherished beyond measure—yes, to an even embarrassing degree. He looks upon you with favor and all-encompassing affection. You are esteemed and sacred in His sight. You strike a chord in His heart. You have turned His head. He is absolutely wrecked when you tell Him that you love Him—it's like putting out fire with gasoline. What you hold dear, He holds dear. He can't stop thinking about you. It preoccupies Him day and night. It's beginning to interfere with His other responsibilities... He likes your sense of humor. You make Him laugh. He drops everything to come when you call. He is intoxicated by your presence. He waits up for you. He looks for your face in a crowd. His heart leaps when He catches your eye... He wants to tell you His secrets. He wants to do your dishes. He wants to care for you in ways that nobody else gets to. All four human loves: charis, philia, agape, and eros, do not come close to describing the torch that He carries for you. His passion for you is so high that it treasures your highest thoughts and dreams, so deep that it descends to your lowest depths, so wide that it extends to every compartment of your life, and so long that it has saturated all of your past and future existence.
Exaggeration and embellishment are not the dangers here.* Even your best words tarnish the truth. But you must know: He is drastically, lavishly, rampantly, unreasonably, fanatically, impulsively, pervasively, jealously, and entirely in-love with you. Deal with it.

*words are Brennan Manning's