Feeling God’s Ever Present Love!

Thanksgiving is in just a few days and during the holiday season it’s especially important to be recognizing the true spirit of what they represent.  Here to tell us about feeling God’s Love and being grateful for that, is Christian Science Practitioner John Kohler, who joined us for the first time this past summer!

It’s not unusual to want to feel loved.  So often we think people just want to fit in or be accepted by their peers, but what that true desire is, is to feel loved.  On a human level it is a desire to be acknowledged and respected as an individual, to be valued and even cared for a little bit.  It just feels good to be included or to know that someone was thinking of you and wanted to do something nice for you.  It makes you feel special!

But sometimes I yearn to feel more of God’s presence, to feel a deeper sense of God’s love.  Even when things are going ok, sometimes, I just don’t feel like I really understand or feel the presence of divine Love in my life.  And if the Christ is the Comforter, as the Bible tells us, and is ever-present, shouldn’t I be able to feel that comfort?  When this happens it almost feels like the joy is being sucked out of me, but I know that in John 16 it talks of a joy that no one can take from you, and a peace that is given to us, greater than any earthly peace.  So how can this be and when it seems to happen what can I do?

Well this happened again this past year, so when I felt it starting to happen I got right to praying, because I know in Science and Health it says that divine Love meets every human need.  So divine Love was going to give me an answer to my need to feel divine Love!  How cool is that?  First I blocked out that sense of fear and loneliness and turned whole heartedly to God, desiring to understand and feel Her presence.  Then I listened.  Soon I started to see God’s goodness all around me. Right there where I thought there was a void I realized it was already filled with God’s love, just like Mrs Eddy says on page 266.  Pretty soon I was making a gratitude list.  Now when I make a gratitude list I like to get right to the true meaning of things.  I don’t make a list of things, I make a list of all the qualities that these “things” represent and express.  Before too long I had a page long list of all the good in my life, I mean I was thankful for everything.  That’s when I realized I was surrounded by God’s love all the time!  Silly me, how could I not be?  I mean, how could I be outside of divine Love’s ever-present tender care?  It’s as if I had a whole new view of things.  It’s not that all this good hadn’t already existed, I just hadn’t recognized it, or acknowledged it.  I just hadn’t loved it first.  That’s often how love works, first we have to love in order to recognized the love shining on us.  That’s what it says in I John 4:19, we love God because He loved us first.

So during this Thanksgiving week, you might want to look all around you, to see and acknowledge all the different ways divine Love is making its presence know in your life, to express love towards all of that, and be thankful for it. Then get ready to feel all that love bouncing right back at ya!