Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

• 1 John 4:7-16

“Our God is adamantly intimate. He knew my fears and spoke directly into my spirit. That is how he wants to speak to you as well. He remembers those moments that made him smile, the very ones we have forgotten. He has forgotten our sin and shame and buried our transgressions in a sea of forgetfulness. He draws us near to heal and mend.
“We lose sight of our identities when we attach them to the wrong imagery. We lose our abilities when we allow fear and even the pain of others to bury our gifts. But we can run and hide in him, and he will speak truth to the most intimate places of our hearts. He longs to rock the rejected in his arms and then plant us in his truth.
“I hope you already know this:

• You are so much more than what you or others can see or touch.
• You are so much more than what you’ve known or done.
• You are so much more than what others think or even how your perceptions frame your self-image.
• You could never be accurately measured by What you own or lack.
• You are more than the span of your years and therefore cannot be tethered to the adages of young or old.
• You are a child of the eternal realm.
• You are more than single, divorced, widowed, or married.
• You are far more than your gender.

“These attributes are tangible expressions of the structure that houses the real life that is you. They are relational dynamics and material possessions. They are like pieces of clothing that cover us and the bodies that shelter us. They represent how our lives appear to be, but they are not our source of life.”
“ ‘We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.’ (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.)”

• Lisa Bevere, Adamant

Ms. Bevere begins her book with a misunderstood word in the modern secular culture, “intimate.”  If you are intimate you are having sex, or that is what the secular world means.  You have an intimate relationship – same thing.

But as Ms. Bevere explains it, you can indeed have intimacy and keep your clothing on.

Just think.  God created sexual intercourse.  He created the body parts to make such things happen.  But he also has counted the hairs on our heads.  If Jesus had told his disciples that God knew the millions of little machines in every cell of our bodies, they would not have understood.  But He knows us that intimately.  That is much more intimate knowledge than sexual intercourse could ever accomplish.  In fact, it makes the sexual act pathetic in comparison.

God knows our past.  He knows our future.  And God is sovereign.  God allows some things to happen while He prevents other things or redirects other things.

To illustrate the redirecting of things, the other day during a tornado in northern Mississippi, I was talking to my son and his family in Tennessee.  The direction of the tornado was straight towards their community in western Tennessee.  I prayed that the tornado would change course and it did, no longer moving toward the ENE.  As I exclaimed over the phone that instead of coming to their town in Tennessee, it was going to another town, due east of the tornado’s present location.  My daughter-in-law said, “But that is where your youngest grandchild’s schoolteacher lives.”  She then mentioned the names of everyone in the family.  Then, the tornado lifted, passing over that town.  Once past the town, the tornado again went to the ground, tearing things to shreds.  It was past our son’s home and when it touched back down, it went back to a more ENE direction, in a less populated area.  I probably was not the only one praying that night, but it illustrated that God can interact with nature and change the course of events.

God loves us that much.

Can we love others in a sacrificial manner as God did when He offered His own Son on our behalf?  That is a tall order, but we can love other sacrificially, giving of our blessings to bless others and glorify God.

In remembrance of my late wife.  We would meet a new family at the church.  After five minutes of talking to them, I would be hard-pressed to remember all the names of the family members, almost guaranteed to forget one or two.  My wife could remember all their names, all their birthdays (even though I did not remember that coming up in the conversation), their wedding anniversary, and other details.  I asked her once how she could do that.  Her response was “Jesus tells us to love our neighbors and if you just cared about your neighbor would you not remember their birthday?!”

My wife loved intimately, almost everyone that she met.

Lord, guide me.  Help us to love others.  Help us to remember birthdays.  We too often are thinking about what we want to say instead of listening to the other person.  Please, Lord, we get in our own way when it comes to loving our neighbors.  We cannot do it without You in us and Your strength moving us forward.  In Thy Name I pray.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.