Abba's Child Reflections Continued

Hello dear friends,

As I continue to read in Brennan Manning's Abba's Child, I am enlightened by the testimony that he quotes from Mike Yaconelli, the cofounder of Youth Specialties. Manning leads into the extended quote from Yaconelli by stating that:

"The indispensable condition for developing and maintaining the awareness of our belovedness is time alone with God....Our identity rests in God's relentless tenderness for us revealed in Jesus Christ." Then goes on to quote...

"Mike Yaconelli, the cofounder of Youth Specialties, tells about the time when, dejected and demoralized, he trundled off with his wife, Karla, to Toronto, Canada, to make a five-day retreat at the L'Arche (the Ark) community. He went hoping to draw inspiration from the mentally and physically handicapped people who lived there or find solace in the presence and preaching of Henri Nouwen. Instead, he found his true self. He tells his story:

It took only a few hours of silence before I began to hear my soul speaking. It only took being alone for a short period of time for me to discover I wasn't alone. God had been trying to shout ver the noisiness of my life, and I couldn't hear Him. But in the stillness and solitude, his whispers shouted from my soul, 'Michael, I am here. I have been calling you, but you haven't been listening. Can you hear me, Michael? I love you. I have always loved you. And I have been waiting for you to hear me say that to you. But you have been so busy trying to prove to yourself you are loved that you have not heard me.'....

At L'Arche, it became very clear to me that I had totally misunderstood the Christian faith. I came to see that it was in my brokenness, in my powerlessness, in my weakness that Jesus was made strong. It was in the acceptance of my lack of faith that God could give me faith. It was in the embracing of my brokenness that I could identify with others' brokenness. It was my role to identify with others' pain, not relieve it. Ministry was sharing, not dominating; understanding, not theologizing; caring, not fixing....

...I can only tell you that it feels very different now. There is an anticipation, an electricity about God's presence in my life that I have never experienced before. I can only tell you that for the first time in my life I can hear Jesus whisper to me every day, 'Michael, I love you. You are beloved.' And for some strange reason, that seems to be enough."

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What an extraordinary quote! What a sense of peace to stop trying so hard and let the burden of having to prove that I am worth loving just slip away. I truly believe that this is why I try so very hard to please people; I am trying to prove that I am worth loving. It is so deeply ingrained in me that I don't even realize it most of the time. Jesus' has liberated me from this Prison of Perpetual Performance to Prove. This truth has penetrated my mind; I am only beginning to sense it saturating my heart.

Dear friends, I share with you, not to prove that I am some spiritual giant; I am not. But what I am is a sinner seeking the depths of an intimate relationship with God that can only be ultimately fulfilled in eternity. If my sharing brings any enlightenment or encouragement to your own hearts, then it is OUR precious Abba Father who is to be praised.

Blessings and peace to all of you.
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Excerpts from Brennan Manning's Abba's Child. Navpress Books, 1994