God loves you.

That’s probably the most used phrase in all of Christian history. To be fair, it’s a central truth in much of Jesus’ teachings, and you would be hard pressed to find a more valuable phrase in all of the Bible.  Like many popular phrases however, this tiny declaration has been used so much that it’s lost some of its meaning and its punch.

So, what does it mean that God loves us?

I believe that God’s love isn’t just an emotional warmth that I can feel when I am receptive to it. Also, is not simply a fact that I carry around intellectually. It is a truth that must be experienced. God’s love is an active, aggressive process that engages my thoughts and emotions. It provokes me to see the world differently and to act in ways that I would not normally act.  It is disruptive, healing, and unpredictable. His love seems to push and pull, challenge, and at times even appears to ignore. I can never take His love for granted because I never know how it will manifest itself at any given moment.

That lead us to another honest question: What difference is that supposed to make in our lives?

Think back to someone in your life who has loved you well. (Hopefully, you have a few to choose from.) You enjoyed being around that person because of the way that their love made you feel. But it didn’t stop there. The love the person gave you changed the way you understood yourself. You became more confident when you were around them. You laughed more. Your stress seemed lighter. What enabled their love to make such a difference in your life?

You believed them.

You believed that they valued you, and therefore, you began to trust that you had value. You trusted that they were right about you.

The same is true of our relationship with God. “God loves you” is simple to understand but difficult to believe. We struggle to trust that God is right about us. So, we explain away his love for us as a nice platitude and fail to feel it’s full impact. When we believe that God loves us and trust how he sees us, it changes how we see ourselves and how we see the world around us.  Our lives become an unpredictable adventure. You may be minding your own business when God sits you next to most chatty person in history at the coffee shop or behind an exhausted mother with three screaming children in line at the grocery store. Instead of seeing this person as an impediment to your day. You see them with fascination, as a person to be valued. When we are secure in God’s love and the value that he ascribes to us, we no longer need this person to be anything other than what they are. When God loves us, we are set free to care for others, no strings attached.

I was taught a song in church when I was a child. We would sing of God’s love as a “fountain flowing deep and wide”. I didn’t fully understand it then, but I see now that being loved by God is a lot like being carried downstream. The stream of his love is deep so my feet can’t reach the ground to try to control it. It’s wide, so I can’t reach to the side and escape it. It bruises me, frustrates me, cleans me, and calms me. It’s constantly changing me and in the end, I will be in a very different place because of it.

May God’s love carry you downstream and leave you clean and full of hope.

The post Being Carried Downstream first appeared on Michael Ramsey.

I love it when autumn arrives each year. There are a thousand things I love about fall, the cool mornings, pumpkin flavored things, and of course, college football. It doesn’t matter who is playing. I just love the games. I love the bands on the field at halftime, and the great environment on campus on gameday Saturdays. Everyone has teams you support and many of us have teams that we cheer against. For many people we root against the rivals of our favorite school, which makes sense. Several years ago I noticed that I had teams that I hoped would lose each and every Saturday, but they weren’t really rivals of my alma mater. The names of those teams aren’t important (Tennessee, Penn State, and Arkansas), what matters is where that strange dislike came from. Was I allergic to that horrific UT orange? Did a razorback chase me as a child? I couldn’t figure it out until my brother enlightened me. When I asked him about it, he answered matter-of-factly, “Pop hated those teams”. My Dad was a college football fan as well, and watching games with him on Saturdays will be a memory I wrap my arms around for the rest of my life. I don’t remember him disliking those teams or saying anything about it. I guess I just absorbed my dislike of those teams from him somehow without fully realizing it.

I think we all absorb things from our fathers. Even when we don’t realize or fully appreciate it. It may be something as simple as how we hold a fork or something as prominent as our quick temper. Early Jewish and Christian writers described God as a Father. I think we all absorb things from him as well, even if our relationship with him isn’t very good. I think one of the most important jobs for Christians today, is to look for those glimpses of our Father in each other. Not only do we need to find it in other Christians, but in those who do not embrace the Christian faith. Glimpses of unexplained goodness. Patience that appears out of nowhere. Kindness, forgiveness, and mercy are all things we have absorbed from our Father. There’s no other explanation for their presence in our lives. When we take the time to look for those things in others, we are able to care for them more fully. We are less likely to make enemies of them, tearing them down with our words. They are family after all. Even if they haven’t realized it yet.

There aren’t many people left living who knew my Dad well enough to tell me if they see him in me still. I hope I reflect him. Even more than that I hope I am able to reflect my Father in heaven, even if it’s a dim reflection at times. Also, I hope we can all find that reflection in each other, however dim it may be. May it lead us to be more patient, more gracious, and less willing to give up on each other.

The post Can You See The Reflection? first appeared on Michael Ramsey.

I lost therefore I am a loser.

I failed therefore I am a failure.

Those statements seem to make sense don’t they?  If you failed, doesn’t that make you a failure? The phrases may seem logical, but they can be incredibly destructive. Using your performance at a particular moment (I failed the test. I lost the game.) to determine your identity is not always honest.

I’ve become hopelessly addicted to the GPS app on my phone. I use it anytime I travel any distance from home. I even use it when I’m close to home just to make sure I am taking the quickest route to where I want to go. Even with GPS it’s easy to miss turns and get lost. We lose focus, turn a bit too early, or get caught up singing Taylor Swift songs to the top of our lungs and fail to hear the notification to take the next left. (not that I’ve ever done the third one).

We all take wrong turns, but that’s different from having a malfunctioning GPS. If we simply take a wrong turn, our GPS can “recalculate” a new route that will get us to where we want to go. It may take a bit longer, but we will eventually arrive at our destination.  If our GPS is broken, however, it will continue to give us wrong information, and we will never arrive at our intended location.

We all make mistakes, fail, sin, or lose at times in life.  Even though it’s not enjoyable, we can learn from our missteps. We pick ourselves up and try again. Believing that we are a loser or a failure is very different. What we believe to be true about ourselves directs every turn we make in life. Like a malfunctioning GPS, false beliefs will lead us off course.  If you believe that you are broken or a failure or unlovable, then you will live a broken life.

The message of the Bible is that God doesn’t believe that you are unlovable or irreparably broken. The Christian life is one in which we daily attempt to believe the truth that God is telling us about life and ourselves. We are loved, and God wants to repair our brokenness and then employ us to reach other broken people. It’s almost too good to believe. The question that I often return to may be one that you need to ask yourself as well: “Is my GPS broken?” Have I begun to believe things about myself that aren’t true? There are lots of voices in the world trying to make us doubt our value. We must block out those toxic voices and listen for the true voice of God speaking into our hearts.

Eugene Peterson writes, “All the waters in the ocean cannot sink a ship unless it gets inside. Nor can all the trouble in the world harm us unless it gets within us.”  You can lose your job, fail in a relationship, get passed over for a promotion, and a thousand other things in life, but none of them will crush you if are able to remember that your identity isn’t the same as your performance. Your performance will fluctuate, but what God thinks of you will never change. So, keep an eye on your inner GPS, and remember that the God of the universe is on your side.

Excerpt from “A Long Obedience In The Same Direction” by Eugene Peterson

The post When Your Inner GPS Is Broken first appeared on Michael Ramsey.

The post Ronda Rousey and Identity: What The Best Fighter In The World Taught Us About Life first appeared on Michael Ramsey.