The Influence of Love

We live in a world that has seemed to have forgotten God and without the sacred to give it orientation, it has fallen into chaos.  Not only societies and communities, but families and individuals are fragmented and dismayed.  Nature abhors a vacuum, and the vacuum of chaos has sucked in all kinds of magical thinking, escapism and opportunism. A deeper truth remains - for though we have forgotten God, God has not forgotten us.  More powerful than ideologically driven bureaucracies, regulatory manipulation and compelling nudges is the Gospel of Christ.  

If this is true, why does God seem absent from the news cycle or family arguments you ask?  He is not absent - He is at work in exquisite and amazing ways. He works with irrevocable subtlety because what He does in the heart is delicate and does not admit of brute force. The news cycle and public strife are too sensational for a God who prefers what is lowly and humble - only the pure of heart can discern the immensity of His power quietly at work in our midst. Hope flows with irresistible force against despondency and anxiety - and its secret source is the cruciform still point around which the world turns. 

God's Love does not need to control or force into compliance. It does not even need to defend itself against social agendas and political theories.  Its power is beyond the grasp of sociology and psychology.  This love has decided for humanity. This faithful love courageously enters into our plight until it is completely disguised in suffering and distress. This saving love remains above the fray even as it engages the marketplace of ideas and the public forum in search of those who need a word of hope.  This gentle love speaks boldly and with freedom, yet it conducts itself as the lowly servant.  Redeeming humanity, this dispossessing love has made itself the special possession of the heart that will welcome it. The Gospel of Christ is that God has revealed Himself to us by entering into our humanity and embracing all the misery it suffers so that we do not suffer alone, so that our dignity is not loss, so that we might find relief from our plight, so that we might at last find our way home.