quiet with love

i like the prophets. i like the way they speak truth--which can make you feel incredibly uneasy, but can also be extremely comforting. the prophets speak of both the justice oriented God and the mercy oriented God. they speak of how perfect mercy and perfect justice abide in one perfect Being, and speak of how this Being will be incarnated into an Emmanuel in the future. i like how you can see the ways that these prophecies play out and still remain relevant today. the prophets are my favorite.

so, naturally, when choosing my first verse to memorize i went to the prophets. throughout advent i read the old testament prophets, and one verse in zephaniah really stood out to me. above all of the other verses of comfort, this one really spoke to me. and it has become my prayer for this year thus far. for me, and for the others in my life, especially, for some reason, women. maybe it's because the section starts out addressing the daughters of Zion. but as i memorized this verse i found myself praying it for my moms and my sisters and my brother-in-law's girlfriend. and then for other women in my life. and i wanted to share this verse with you:

the LORD your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.
-zephaniah 3:17

i'm not exactly sure why i found this verse so comforting. maybe it's the thought of God taking, not only delight, but great delight in me. maybe it's because the thought of someone singing over me is an interesting thought--conjuring up both the image of a parent singing over their newborn, and the goofy times luke will randomly burst into a made-up song about how he loves me. but the section i found myself contemplating most was the thought of God quieting me with His love. and i meditated on this for most of my run yesterday.

what would it look like for me to be quieted by God's love? i came up with two main thoughts:

first, if i was quieted by God's love, i think the voices in my head that make me over-analyze all of my actions would no longer be. if i am fully confident of God's love for me, i do not go over everything i do to make sure it was right; if an interaction makes me uneasy i think about it once, apologize if i need to and move along, confident that God loves me even though i mess up. while being quieted by God's love in this sense does not mean i do not want to improve, it means that i trust that as long as i am following Him, He is going to teach me how because He loves me.

secondly, being quieted by God's love will mean that i don't gossip any more. gossip is so much fun, isn't it? thinking about how someone else really messed up in a way that is hard for them to fix (if they even realize it or want to fix). it's looking at someone else and saying "they did what?!" and feeling at least a little bit superior because i would never do that or say that or make that mistake. and that makes me better than them. but, really, the root of all my gossip or desire to do so stems out of some form of jealousy. i wish i was more like that person in a certain way, and therefore must elevate myself above them in another way in order to feel justified. if i am quieted by God's love and know that He delights in me i can take full confidence in that, and it negates my need to make myself better than others, because i am fully satisfied that God loves me the way that i am. i am also, therefore, free to more fully love others. especially the ones that i want to gossip about. because God fully loves them the way they are, too.

so that is my prayer for myself and for the people in my life. especially the women (whether or not that is right). that we would be able to have full confidence in the fact that God loves us. and that the fact that God loves us would be enough to quiet our minds and our mouths and more fully love others.