Buechner: in the wilderness

Friday, August 23, 2024
    Commemoration of Rose of Lima, Contemplative, 1617
Meditation:
    Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’”
    —Mark 12:29-30 (ESV)
Quotation:
    The final secret, I think, is this: that the words “You shall love the Lord your God” become in the end less a command than a promise. And the promise is that, yes, on the weary feet of faith and the fragile wings of hope, we will come to love him at last as from the first he has loved us—loved us even in the wilderness, especially in the wilderness, because he has been in the wilderness with us. He has been in the wilderness for us. He has been acquainted with our grief.
    ... Frederick Buechner (1926-2022), A Room Called Remember: Uncollected Pieces, HarperCollins, 2009, p. 45 (see the book)
    See also Mark 12:29-30; Deut. 6:5; Isa. 53:3; Matt. 22:37; Luke 10:27; Rom. 8:38-39
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, may I grow daily in love for You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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