Topic: The Transforming Power of Being Fully Known and Fully Loved

Theme: Theology 

Author: Barry Sweet

Date: January 7, 2018

Video Production by Tim & Karen Morse. Morsephotography.com

 

So not everybody will go into the theology subject, but here are my thoughts on theology… 

Remember ODJ? Observe. Don't Judge? For me and my Christian faith… 

My Lord says to me LDJ… Which is Love. Don't Judge. Here's what He says. “It's my job to judge. Not yours. You actually don't know enough to judge. 

You just love. You love, I’ll judge.  I’ll judge, You love.  Love. Don't Judge. I'll do the Judging. You don't have nearly the tools to Judge… you don't know…  There's so many complexities in the human condition. You're a terrible Judge. You love. I'll judge. Your job… to love.  My job… to Judge. Leave the Judgment to me. You just love.” 

So that's what I get from Jesus. That's what He tells me to do. And it's an ethic that… I don't know… when I think about Him, I think about Him as The Romantic Story. Whether you believe in God or not… to have a God create an earth and give seven billion people free will and let them come here… 

It's really kind of Romantic to think that he would come incognito himself… for a while… and live it out, rather than just sit up on a throne, away from the whole thing and watch it all happen. Actually come quietly and live it out and be here… By doing that… we can never really say “You don't understand what it's like down here…” 

Because He can say… “You know what? I actually do”. And we can say “You don't know what it's like to suffer!” and He can say “You know what? I actually do”. I can think of three terrible deaths. One of them by fire. One of them by drowning.  Another one by crucifixion. These are tough ways out… of earth and we can't say “You don't know what it's like down here…”. That's a God that I would want to follow, because it's not just some game. It's something much bigger than that. Something that he's willing to be part of as well. 

And what I have found is that in the idea of Fully Known and Fully Loved…that this is the one place… the fountain that doesn't quit. 

That is Fully Known and Fully Loved. 

I don't have to try…. 

And he's reversed the whole rules. They call it “Reverse Theology” because in normal theology you “work”… you get approval of the God… Then you get in.  

But in Jesus’ story… He says “You can't work to get in. We already know you're going to blow it. 

So I'll cover ya… Even if you do 90%... I’ll cover the 10%. 

If you do 50%, I'll cover the other 50%. 

And if you do 10%... I'll cover the 90%.   

And if you do 0% percent… I’ll cover the 100%. 

That's the thing. It's a Gift. 

It's not something you earn. 

We always thought it was something you earned. 

And he says “No, no… we're going to do a different game here. It's a Gift.  It's not anything that you earn.”

And that's why I follow Jesus. 

But, I also know that it's got to be hard for Him to do this whole thing… and I think that's why He invented clouds…. So He doesn't have to see it all the time…

He just lets them come in the way… and night…! 

That way He doesn’t have to watch this stuff… 

And my closest Buddhist friend… It came time for me to learn about meditation and so I said “OK I'm ready. Teach me”. And I said “How do you do it?” And he said “Well there's a problem…  We've got the monkey mind. It's like a monkey crawling all over your shoulders and your leg and your back and up around your arm and over your head and you have to get it to quit so that you can meditate.” 

And I said “Well how do you do it? And he said “Well, I treat it like a baby in my arm and I say ‘there, there… calm down, calm down’ and then I'm able to meditate”. So I went home and tried that and it absolutely didn't work for me. And so I thought “Well, you know… what is my way of meditation…?” And what I decided is that if I could have my dream come true for my meditation time… I would have a conduit between my head and God and it would just go “Woo Woo Woo” (back and forth thru the conduit) and I'd be just intimately close with God, the Creator of the Universe. 

And so I got my little pillows and I sat down. I couldn't quite sit in the middle of the floor like my Buddhist friend does.  So I put my back against the edge of the couch so I could lean against something. 

I had copied Enya’s Watermark seven times (which comes to the obligatory 20 minutes for meditation) and it was back to back so that I’d know that when the music stopped, my 20 minutes was over and I'd be done with my meditation time. 

And I sat there and I started my first meditation… and it was interesting because I didn't do this… but this thing happened to me… something happened to me… and it went like this… 

I felt the God of the Universe say these words to me “I love you. I love you, Barry. I love you… I love you… I love you…”  And because it went in with the cadence with the music… the monkey mind didn't happen… I was free of the monkey mind for a full 20 minutes… and the only incoming information were these words “I love you”. I got done with that time and I was on this high… the next day I could hardly wait to try it again. So I got my pillows. I sat down and I turned on my Enya… and something completely different happened… I said those words to God… “I love you. I love you. I love you, Lord. I love you…” And when the music ended and my 20 minutes was up… it was another completely different kind of a high… something I had never experienced before. I could hardly wait to try it again the third day. So I got my pillows. I got my music. I sat down and then something completely different happened. 

God said to me “I love you”.  And I said “I love you” and God said, “I love you”. And I said, “I love you…” And for 20 minutes… I spoke to God. God spoke to me… and that I was sort of “basking”in the love of God. 

And in talking to my bride, she helped me decide that I couldn't use the word meditation for me anymore. And that for me… I was going to be calling it basking. And I've called it basking ever since. So I have basking time. It takes 20 minutes…  Enya’s there, God’s there… I'm there.  It's one of the richest times of my life. And on the days that I bask… I am a calmer boss at work. 

On the days that I don't bask… I'm a frenetic, busy, no eye, contact boss at work. So it makes a difference in my life and it's part of the beauty of the things I love about the life that I'm discovering as I get older.

So a quote from Neil Coen… “A gift left on the porch is trash”.  And so we've talked about this Gift from God, not being something that you earn in any way not being something that you work for… actually working for it is not only discouraged, it just doesn't work… and the only way to accept this Gift is by saying a simple three letter word… Yes.