{"id":20714,"date":"2021-10-29T09:51:08","date_gmt":"2021-10-29T13:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=20714"},"modified":"2021-10-29T09:51:08","modified_gmt":"2021-10-29T13:51:08","slug":"being-gods-somebody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=20714","title":{"rendered":"Being \u201cGod\u2019s Somebody\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cJ-IBr8bsfs\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Everybody is\nGod\u2019s somebody.<\/em>&nbsp;\u2014Bishop Michael Curry, <em>Love Is the\nWay<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Episcopal Bishop Michael\nCurry, with whom Fr. Richard has worked on several occasions, shares how\nknowing we are \u201cGod\u2019s somebody\u201d allows us to love ourselves and others. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ve come to see that the call of God, the love that bids\nus welcome, is always a call to become the true you. . . . Not an imitation of\nsomeone else. The true you: someone made in the image of God, deserving of and\nreceiving love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is a Jewish proverb, \u201cBefore every person there\nmarches an angel proclaiming, \u2018Behold, the image of God.\u2019\u201d Unselfish,\nsacrificial living isn\u2019t about ignoring or denying or destroying yourself. It\u2019s\nabout discovering your true self\u2014the self that looks like God\u2014and living life\nfrom that grounding. Many people are familiar with a part of Jesus\u2019s summary of\nthe law of Moses: You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself. <em>Yourself.<\/em>\nLoving the self is a required balance. If we fail in that, we fail our\nneighbor, too. To love your neighbor is to relate to them as someone made in\nthe image of the God. And it is to relate to <em>yourself <\/em>as someone made in the image\nof the God. It\u2019s God, up, down, and all around, and God is love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The ability to love yourself is intimately related to\nyour capacity to love others. The challenge is creating a life that allows you\nto fulfill both needs. I often speak of the loving, liberating, life-giving\nGod. Sharing godly love liberates the true self, so that we can more fully <em>live<\/em>\nand discover that place where \u201cyour deep gladness and the world\u2019s great hunger\nmeet,\u201d as Frederick Buechner put it in <em>Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I don\u2019t know exactly <em>why<\/em> it works that way, other than to\nchannel my grandma: \u201cWe\u2019ve got a good God and a good Gospel.\u201d . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All I know is that I have seen the wonderful personal\ntransformations that happen when people start navigating with God\u2019s GPS. I\u2019ve\nexperienced it myself. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My job is to plant seeds of love, and to keep on\nplanting, even\u2014or especially\u2014when bad weather comes. It\u2019s folly to think I can\nknow the grand plan, how my small action fits into the larger whole. All I can\ndo is check myself, again and again: Do my actions look like love?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If they are truly loving, then they are part of the grand\nmovement of love in the world, which is the movement of God in the world. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is impossible to know, in the moment, how a small act\nof goodness will reverberate through time. The notion is empowering, and it is\nfrightening\u2014because it means that we\u2019re all capable of changing the world, and\nresponsible for finding those opportunities to protect, feed, grow, and guide\nlove.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad____________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sarah Young\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>LINGER IN MY PRESENCE A WHILE. Rein in your impulses to\nplunge into the day\u2019s activities. Beginning your day alone with Me is essential\npreparation for success. A great athlete takes time to prepare himself mentally\nfor the feat ahead of him before he moves a muscle. Similarly, your time of\nbeing still in My Presence equips you for the day ahead of you. Only I know\nwhat will happen to you this day. I have arranged the events you will encounter\nas you go along your way. If you are not adequately equipped for the journey,\nyou will grow weary and lose heart. Relax with Me while I ready you for action.\nZECHARIAH 2:13; Be still before the LORD, all mankind, because he has roused\nhimself from his holy dwelling.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>EPHESIANS 2:10; For we are God&#8217;s handiwork, created in\nChrist Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>HEBREWS 12:3; For consider him that endured such\ncontradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your\nminds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling Morning and Evening Devotional\n(Jesus Calling\u00ae) (p. 624). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everybody is God\u2019s somebody.&nbsp;\u2014Bishop Michael Curry, Love Is the Way Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry, with whom Fr. Richard has worked on several occasions, shares how knowing we are \u201cGod\u2019s somebody\u201d allows us to love ourselves and others. I\u2019ve come to see that the call of God, the love that bids us welcome, is always a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20714"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20714"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20715,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20714\/revisions\/20715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}