Tag: personal relationship

Do You Want to Know Goodness and Love?

On By Raina NightingaleIn Application24 Comments

How many of you who deny or reject God would want, if it were possible, to know, love, and serve a Being who not only loves but was the very incarnation of Love, a Person who not only was good but was goodness itself?

If you’ve read other writings of mine, most of the time when I use the word ‘God’ I do not mean an exceptionally powerful creature with an ego problem or anything like that. Perhaps, it will make things clearer if, in this post, I don’t use the word ‘God’ or any words associated with that word at all to describe the thing of which I am thinking and which I am putting forward for your consideration, but I’m not sure how to do that. There’s only so many words in the world, or at least in any given language. Continue reading “Do You Want to Know Goodness and Love?” →

The Truth is a Person: Objectivity and Relativity in Morality and More

On By Raina NightingaleIn ApplicationLeave a comment

Reality is objective because subjective and subjective because objective, and both because Personal. (I hold, indeed, that to be is not different from to be known, and that fullness of being may not distinguishable from both being known and knowing, being loved and loving. Indeed, God Himself, in the Holy Trinity, both knows Himself and is known by Himself, loves Himself and is loved by Himself, for He is Three Eternal, Consubstantial (that is, of one substance) Persons. When He creates, He knows and loves the creation, and so the creation exists, by having a share in His own existence.) Continue reading “The Truth is a Person: Objectivity and Relativity in Morality and More” →

Grace, Seasoned with Salt, and Evangelism

On By Raina NightingaleIn Application3 Comments

“Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to respond to each person appropriately.”

Each human being whose form we see, whose voice we hear, or with whom our lives otherwise touch, is a unique person, created by the Holy Trinity in the image of God. They are not individual numbers or statistics walking around, they are persons, with all the wonder and dignity attendant to being created images of God, and we are to treat them as such: each one a person unique from all the rest and special to God. Continue reading “Grace, Seasoned with Salt, and Evangelism” →

Election is About You and God, Not Your Neighbor

On By Raina NightingaleIn Application1 Comment

“I will show mercy on whom I show mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So, then, it depends not on him who runs nor on him who wills, but on God who shows mercy.”

“Who are you, a man, to argue back with God? Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it, ‘Why did You make me thus?’”

Jesus said to Peter, “Follow me.” And, Peter followed him along the shore, but looking back he saw another disciple following, and he said to Jesus, “But, Lord, what of him?” and Jesus said to him, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me.”

“And the disciple whom Jesus loved reclined with his head on the Lord’s breast.”

God is Personal, and He relates to us personally. I believe that Jesus’ response to Peter, “What is that to you? You follow me,” is applicable to far more than questions about the length of life and manner of death of other people. We know God personally; we know God as He relates to us, as He reveals Himself to us; we know God in His Son, Jesus Christ.

The Gospel of St. John bears witness to the fact that we stand alone before God. Throughout it, the author refers to himself, never by name, but as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” This is further accentuated when Jesus says, “What is that to you? You follow me.” This same Gospel also records these words, “I call My own by name, and they follow Me,” and the interaction between the Risen Lord and Mary of Magdala outside of the tomb, where He says, “Mary!” and instantly she recognizes Him and says, “Rabboni!” Continue reading “Election is About You and God, Not Your Neighbor” →

Waiting on God

On By Raina NightingaleIn ApplicationLeave a comment

“Wait for YHWH; wait patiently for Him.”

“You watchmen over the house of Israel, give YHWH no rest until He establishes peace for Jerusalem.”

“We yearn for You, more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.”

“O God, You are my God, I shall seek You early. My soul yearns for You, my body thirsts for You, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”

A mother is cooking a dessert. Her child goes over to the oven every half-minute and asks, “Is it done yet, Mom?” In exasperation, the mother says, “Be patient!” When the dessert is removed from the oven, the child asks, “Can I eat it now?” to which the mother responds, “It has to cool still. Wait, please, will you?”

When God says, “Wait for Me,” or “Wait patiently,” He does not mean what the mother in this story means by patient or wait. Continue reading “Waiting on God” →