The Great Invitation

Wednesday Wisdom: The Great Invitation.

Recently, a good friend mentioned a book she was reading about the idea of ‘upper limiting.’ It is about how we are constantly limiting ourselves. I didn’t read the book, but the idea intrigued me, and I began to consider how this notion played out in my daily life, and in my relationship with God, too.

In spiritual direction, we talk about the desire for the more. Often, people come to spiritual direction seeking the more in their relationship with God, or in their prayer life. They sense they are “upper limiting” their experience of God and the sacred, so they come seeking to discover another way, the way of more.

How do we upper limit God–and not allow for the more?

Last Saturday, I fell into a familiar negative pattern in my behavior and in my thoughts. It was triggered by the habitual feeling of not being enough. Of course, I was so mad at myself for falling into the same self destructive behaviors of eating and drinking beyond my own comfort zone and personal limits.

While I was awake during the night, I started to berate myself for falling into the same old pattern. How many times do we fall into our own traps, when we know better, and then feel full of shame because of it? But something different happened this happened. In the midst of these negative thoughts, I heard a voice in me asking me to let myself be loved. Bam! Right then and there. Could I receive God’s unconditional love? 

I internally heard God say to me: Get out of that small box you’ve put yourself in, and let me love you. So, I stepped out, and allowed the soothing, healing balm of God’s love to embrace me. It was such a deep comfort.

Fortunately, I fell back to sleep for a few hours, and the next day I was able to be more present and available to my husband. His band was playing in an afternoon show at Union Square, in San Francisco. I was able to help him get ready, go downtown with him, enjoy the show, and take photographs. It ended up being a really fun afternoon.

By allowing ourselves to receive God’s unconditional love, we become more available and present to love ourselves and to love others.

This is the Great Invitation: to receive God’s unconditional love. It’s not easy at moments when we’re not feeling good about ourselves. Yet, it is precisely at these raw and vulnerable moments when we must pray for the grace to hear God telling us that we are always loved, that there are no conditions.

Yes, we are all in the habit of giving and receiving love with conditions. But why not challenge that, and see how we are ‘upper limiting’ our experience of love, both for ourselves and for others.

I invite you to take the Great Invitation and allow God’s unconditional love into your life more.

Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. (Psalm 36:5-7)

Practice for Today:

• Notice when you are responding to yourself with a harsh voice, a critical voice, a negative notice. Noticing is a great first step in building awareness and moving towards change.
• In the moment, see if you can allow God’s unconditional love to bring softness, tenderness, acceptance. Pray for this grace: God please allow your unconditional love to come into this moment. 
• You might pull back at first, because it feels foreign to be absolutely accepted, but this is God’s Great Invitation–it’s the true offer, see if you can practice saying “Yes” to it.