A Rendezvous With God
Part 4: Falling in Love
by GLORY E. DHARMARAJ *
Yet even now, says the Lord,
return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
rend your hearts and not your clothing.
Return to the Lord, your God,
for God is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and relents from punishing.
Who knows whether God will not turn and relent,
and leave a blessing behind God,
a grain offering and a drink offering
for the Lord, your God?
Blow the trumpet in Zion;
sanctify a fast;
call a solemn assembly;
gather the people.
Sanctify the congregation;
assemble the aged;
gather the children,
even infants at the breast.
Let the bridgegroom leave his room,
and the bride her canopy.
Between the vestibule and the altar
let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep.
Let them say, “Spare your people, O Lord,
and do not make your heritage a mockery,
a byword among the nations.
Why should it be said among the peoples,
‘Where is their God?’”Joel 2:12-17
In the Methodist Center in Mumbai, India, I had a chance to read again some of the books written by E. Stanley Jones, a well-known missionary sent by the Methodist mission board to India. I was deeply moved by the way Mr. Jones explained the heart of spiritual matters in human relational terms. Repentance is to draw nearer to the heart of God to be filled by the dew of God’s love. Mr. Jones writes:
“Go beyond your sins, beyond the principles, to the Person. Then religion will be to you a long falling in love.”
Religion is no more a striving, no more a principle. Religion becomes about knowing and responding to the heart throb of someone in love.
John 3:16 says:
God so loved the world that God gave God’s only Child.
Repentance is a radical and revolutionary way of emptying ourselves of all that works contrary to this love of God. Repentance is to open to being filled with the one love that matters: God’s steadfast love.
Repentance is grace finding us in the dead of night. It is grace filling us in the night of our soul.
May God fill our empty jars with the dew from above.
PRAYER:
Create in me a clean heart O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from your presence,
and do not take away your holy spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and sustain in me a willing spirit. Amen.Psalm 51:10-12
*Glory E. Dharmaraj, Ph.D., is director of spiritual formation and mission theology for the Women’s Division of the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries.