{"id":1089,"date":"2015-02-12T03:00:55","date_gmt":"2015-02-12T08:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/interior-about-face\/"},"modified":"2015-02-12T03:00:55","modified_gmt":"2015-02-12T08:00:55","slug":"interior-about-face","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/interior-about-face\/","title":{"rendered":"Interior About-Face"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Melodious Monk<\/p>\n<p>Have you ever asked yourself honestly, does God love me? While the answer YES! comes quickly to mind, I know many times today I&#8217;ll ask myself this question and doubt. Over small worries, unfairness, fears &#8212; and over situations I don\u2019t know how to handle, or am powerless to change &#8212; I&#8217;ll ask this question and doubt.<\/p>\n<p>These words from Henri Nouwen\u2019s well-known meditations on the story of the Prodigal Son are hopeful in bridging the gap of faith between knowing about God\u2019s love, and allowing oneself to live inside of this love. Nouwen shares:<em>\u00a0\u2018For most of my life I have struggled to find God, to know God, to love God. I have tried hard to follow the guidelines of the spiritual life&#8211;pray always, work for others, read the scriptures&#8211;and to avoid the many temptations to dissipate myself. I have failed many times but always tried again, even when I was close to despair.\u00a0\u00a0Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not \u201cHow am I to find God?\u201d but \u201cHow am I to let myself be found by him?\u201d The question is not \u201cHow am I to know God?\u201d but \u201cHow am I to let myself be known by God?\u201d And, finally, the question is not \u201cHow am I to love God?\u201d but \u201cHow am I to let myself be loved by God?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m certain I put forth much extra work to answer the wrong questions; extra efforts to \u201cfind God,\u201d and to \u201cknow God\u201d rather than simply <em>allowing<\/em> myself to be loved by him.\u00a0 Nouwen continues: <em>\u201cBut if I am able to look at the world with the eyes of God\u2019s love and discover that God\u2019s vision is not that of a stereotypical landowner or patriarch, but rather that of an all-giving and forgiving father who does not measure out his love to his children according to how well they behave, then I quickly see that my only true response can be deep gratitude.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I have so much to be grateful for, all the time, every day.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-4365289\" src=\"http:\/\/of.communityofjesus.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_1150.jpg\" alt=\"The Community of Jesus\" width=\"140\" height=\"208\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/TheCommunityOfJesus\/~4\/wTQonWRUCec\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Melodious Monk Have you ever asked yourself honestly, does God love me? While the answer YES! comes quickly to mind, I know many times today I&#8217;ll ask myself this question and doubt. Over small worries, unfairness, fears &#8212; and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/interior-about-face\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paraclete-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1089\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}