Looking for God, Looking for Love

Hi, friends, and welcome to the Weekly Dulin Podcast, a brief weekly reflection from Dulin United Methodist Church in Falls Church. Here, we take time to think together about faith, community, and what it means to live as disciples of Jesus in today's world.

Hello, Dulin Church. It's me, James Henry, your pastor. And it's good to be with you for a weekly moment and a Dulin Weekly Podcast. I hope you're having a good week here in the midst of Easter season. Yes, indeed.

It is a season of fifty days. It began on what you think of probably as Easter. That's the first Sunday in Easter and runs all the way through Pentecost at the May or the almost May anyway. So as we're here in the midst of the Easter season, one of the things that happened this past Sunday is I got to teach the children in children's Sunday school. It was kind of fun.

We talked a little bit about who is God. That was the topic for Sunday. And I'm going to let you in on what I told the children or what they told me, what we learned together about who is God. And we used as our text to talk about it, First John, the first letter of John, chapter four, verse eight, which tells us essentially God is love. God is love.

And if you think about it, who is God is love. Our God is love. So one of the things I wanted to invite you to do is to look around in your life, in the places you go this week, in the people you see, the people you talk to, in the things that happen in the midst of your life. Look around and see where you see love appearing. Listen for words that remind you of love.

Loving words and things that make you feel warm, connected, alive, appreciated, seen because those are moments when love appears in your life. And if God is love, then those are moments that God is showing up in your life. When you're talking to a friend and something they say brings back fond memories or lifts you up when you were feeling down and you feel that warm feeling, that sense of being seen, that sense of being heard, that's love showing up. That's God showing up. You know, one of our jobs, we're essentially out in the field most all of the time in our lives, out in the field kind of looking for ways to express the person God made us to be, ways to express the gifts that make us who we are, looking for ways to be the person God imagined we would be, to see the world with the kinds of eyes that God sees them.

And because God is love and God sees with love, God sees this world with love. God sees you with love, but also invites you to see the rest of the world, the world that God loves with those same eyes. To see love wherever you go. When you look at yourself in the morning in the mirror, maybe you're fixing your hair, maybe you're brushing your teeth, Putting on your makeup, I suppose. Not something I do, but I know there are people who do.

And when you're looking at that face that God gave you and you get that hopefully positive feeling about the person you're seeing, that positive feeling you get is that sense of love. When you, at this time of year, particularly if you're one of our friends who are listening here from the Northern Hemisphere, it is springtime. And of course, that means warmer temperatures, but it means flowers are blossoming, trees are budding, the grass is beginning to grow and requiring that it be cut, those kinds of things. All of that is beginning to happen around us. Maybe when you see flowers in the springtime, it brings that warm feeling to you.

It reminds you of your sense of connection to creation. It lifts you up. That feeling of being lifted up, of being held is the feeling of love. And it's a sign that God is present in our lives. When you see perhaps someone walking with a small child and you see those little tiny legs trying to keep up with the longer legs of the adult.

I saw that this morning as I was walking down from the parsonage to the church. I saw that with a mom who had dropped off her older toddler in the preschool and she was walking out to her car with a littler toddler, one who wasn't old enough to be in the preschool. And just watching those little legs try to move fast enough to keep up with mom, it just brought a warm feeling to me. It just reminded me of how exciting it is to be alive, the diversity of it all, the beauty of it all. And in that moment of warmth and encouragement, I felt love.

And therefore, I saw a moment, had a glimpse of God's presence. I think it's something that we tend to miss in our lives. The whole reason why I'm bringing it up with you now, why I talked about it with the children on Sunday, but why I think it's something that adults need to hear just as much is for that exact reason. We miss when love shows up in our lives. We miss those moments when we feel better because we're talking to somebody who we know cares about us, sees us, loves us just as we are.

It's in moments like that that we experience the presence of God. Now you can experience the presence of God in all sorts of other kinds of ways. I'm not suggesting to you otherwise. What I am suggesting to you is that when love shows up in our lives, a note from a friend, an email from someone we haven't heard from in a while, a telephone call, an encounter with a neighbor that is positive, a dog licking our hands, if you're a dog person, whatever, those can be moments that remind us of the presence of God everywhere and in every moment. Sometimes we tend to get caught up in the idea that God is going to show up when we show up in worship, whether it's online or in person, however often it is, we expect that maybe God's going to show up then.

I want to suggest to you that as people who follow a God who is everywhere at all times, in all moments, in and around us all the time, that we can experience God more often than just when we gather to worship God. We can experience God in the loving moments. Not saying there aren't other moments that you might experience God as well, but those are moments worth trying. What I want to encourage you to do when you're looking around this week, this coming weekend, you're watching this at the time, it's likely it's on Thursday, maybe you're listening to it, it's Thursday, it's Friday, whenever you see this, hear this. It's already the weekend.

But I encourage you to look around with open eyes. When you catch yourself just distracted in the world, look around with open eyes. What does the sound of the bird that you hear singing in the tree near you do to you? What does watching families interact around you do to you? What does talking to someone you care about do to you and to them?

What does drinking your favorite coffee related beverage or tea related beverage do for you? Because in all those moments, we can be reminded of our connection to God. That connection is love. Everything about God is relational. And so we are, every time we experience relationship connection, that bridge between us all, we are experiencing God.

You could even take it one step further. And that is to journal about the moments that you saw God. In our next confirmation class we're going to get some reports from the field. At least that's my plan for the next confirmation class. We're going to get reports from the field from the confirmands.

Don't worry if you're a confirmand. I'm not going to make you stand up in front of the congregation, that kind of thing necessarily. But we're going to get reports about where they saw love at school, at work, walking, playing sports, wherever it is. We're going to talk about that. And you're getting a heads up, a head start.

Look for and write those down. And even one more step, but only if you're feeling it, only if you're feeling it, you can email me some of those places where you saw love this week. It doesn't have to be today, it could be any time. PastorDulinChurch dot org. You can email me with your experiences of love.

Where did you see God today? Maybe you've already seen God all over the place and you're suddenly realizing it wasn't just love, it wasn't just a positive thing, it was signs of God's presence. So look, it's worth looking. Remember that you matter to God, that you matter to us at Dulin Church. We're so glad you're a part of us.

Whether you're a friend or a member, you matter to us. And we hope that you feel and know how loved you already are. God is in love with you. I would venture to say madly in love with you. Head over heels in love with you because that's who God is.

God is love. So be mindful of that this week. It's an invitation and encouragement. I will look forward to seeing those of you I see on Sunday. And otherwise, thanks for joining me this week, and I wish you all the very best.