The Dumbfounded Outlet

People often ask me how I come up with the topics for my blogs. I don’t “come up with them;” they seem to come up to me. Like the topic of last week’s blog and this week’s blog. When this happens, I know it and I know I need to go with it. So, if this week’s blog makes you shake your head, I apologize. Remember, I’m just the messenger.

I was sitting on the couch the other day when I glanced down and saw what I have identified as an electrical outlet for all of my life. Two receptacles that provide power. (See the picture above.) But for some reason, this time, when my gaze landed on this common household object, I saw something new: two small, dumbfounded faces looking back at me. Do you see them?

My initial reaction was one of surprise, then laughter. As the smile crept across my face, I thought to myself, “There’s my blog.”

This newfound outlet awareness had me pondering: How could I not have seen it like this before? All my life this has eluded me. What else is right in front of me but I don’t see it, I wondered. Why did I see it then? Do other people see this?

These are some of the same questions I have asked myself when confronted with a new awareness in my spiritual life.

A spiritual truth that I have recently been made aware of that has me asking these same questions was uncovered in our study of the book, I Thirst, by Fr. Joseph Langford at Firstfruits. If you have been reading my blogs this Lent, you have read many quotes from his book. The astounding truth that I saw completely different than I had all of my life was the truth that God thirsts for you and for me.

God yearns for us.

I’ve always believed that God loves us, but somehow this truth that He yearns for us surprised me into a new way of seeing our relationship with God.

Jesus proclaims that thirst of the Father for us on the cross when He says, “I Thirst.” The very act of dying on the cross was to point to the profound yearning of the Father to be with us for all eternity. Jesus’s death made that possible. There is a truth to really ponder as we come into the final stretch of our Lenten journey.

With this newfound thirst awareness, I have a growing sense of urgency to quench that thirst of Jesus by learning how to love Him back with the same intensity. What I have learned so far is that the best way to love Him back is to yearn for Him, only. We need to identify and strive to eliminate the worldly, human yearnings that take up so much of our time and energy.

The yearning for validation, acceptance, success, and control. The pre-occupation with gaining popularity, material wealth, and security. We yearn for these things but what do they give us in return? Most often they just feed our unhealthy yearnings and keep us too busy to recognize the one who is yearning for us, the one who can provide all that we try so hard to provide for ourselves.

Another way to love back according to Fr. Langford is to “offer ourselves as vessels and channels for God’s thirsting love to a waiting world.” Once our eyes are opened to the thirsting love of God, we need to share that awareness. Who do you know who needs to hear that God yearns for them? Who can you dumbfound with the love of Jesus?

There’s power in those outlets alright. Every time you see one now, hopefully, it will put a smile on your face and remind you of the dumbfoundingly beautiful truth of God’s yearning for you.

Just the messenger,
Joan