Today I am utterly broken by the love of God. I’m in grief over the ones who scorn him.  I’m aching to love him and aching for those I love to love him as well. 

God, I pray you open the eyes of our heart as Paul prayed in Ephesians 1:17. I long to see you and I long for those whom I love to see you. Thank you for your grace and mercy. I thank you that you love us as we are and not as we should be. 

I leave you, beloved, with this: A song and 5 quotes by Rich Mullins. Enjoy. 

Christianity is not about building an absolutely secure little niche in the world where you can live with your perfect little wife and your perfect little children in your beautiful little house where you have no gays or minority groups anywhere near you. Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken.

Never forget what Jesus did for you. Never take lightly what it cost Him. And never assume that if it cost Him His very life, that it won’t also cost you yours.

I grew up hearing everyone tell me ‘God loves you’. I would say big deal, God loves everybody. That don’t make me special! That just proves that God ain’t got no taste. And, I don’t think He does. Thank God! Because He takes the junk of our lives and makes the most beautiful art.

I take comfort in knowing that it was the shepherds to whom the angels appeared when they announced Christ’s birth. Invariably throughout the course of history, God has appeared to people on the fringes. It’s nice to find theological justification for your quirks.

I look back over the events of my life and see the hands that carried Moses to his grave lifting me out of mine. In remembering I go back to these places where God met me and I meet him again and I lay my head on his breast, and he shows me the land beyond the Jordan and I suck into my lungs the fragrance of his breath, the power of his presence.