“How could my heart turn away? Jesus, I love you.”

Dear God, these were the words in a praise song I was singing at a worship service last night that…well, I don’t know how to say it. I guess I questioned whether I really meant it: “Jesus, I love you.” I love the Trinity. I love all three persons that make up your being. And I am really, really grateful for Jesus’s example, life, and then sacrifice of death for my sins. I truly am. And I do love Jesus. But I guess there are always those difficult things that Jesus did that I don’t understand. Maybe I’m still not at peace with them.

I wonder if this is why I never imagine myself praying to Jesus when I pray. I pray in my heart to the Father. I pray in my heart to the Holy Spirit–that part of the Trinity which Jesus said he would send to help us. I guess, theologically, I’ve wondered if we haven’t put too much emphasis on Jesus’s current role in our daily lives and accidentally deemphasized the part of your nature that you sent to dwell in us–the Holy Spirit. Your Holy Spirit.

I told a friend today that I’ve been feeling a little dry spiritually lately. It probably has something to do with the resurgence of some souring family relationships that break my heart. It might even have something to do with the dog days of summer and just how oppressive hot, cloudless, rainless days over and over again can be. But it’s in times like this that I think it’s important to keep showing up. Keep worshipping you–both corporately and privately. Keep praying. Keep serving. I guess that’s the point Mother Teresa got to in her life. Apparently, she felt a separation from you she never overcame. I’m certainly not in that kind of place, thankfully. I wonder if hers was a result of just seeing so much human suffering with human eyes. That can be hard to square with a loving God in our own wisdom. Sometimes, I think the reason some Christians keep themselves in a protective bubble is because it is easier to understand you in that context. It is the suffering, both experienced and witnessed, that can be hard (see Job and his friends). But it can also be what brings us to a whole new level of faith (see Job).

Father, I love you. Jesus, I love you. Holy Spirit, I love you. I don’t fully or even mostly understand the Trinity and your make-up, but I know that I am a grateful man who lays himself before you.

With all my love, and through the grace of Jesus I pray,

Amen