The (Lieben)GOOD LIFE

    One thing I asked of the   Lord ,      that will I seek after: to live in the house of the  Lord      all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the  Lord ,      and to inquire in his temple.  Psalm 27.4 NRSV    I have asked one thing from the   Lord —      it’s all I seek:          to live in the  Lord ’s house all the days of my life,          seeing the  Lord ’s beauty          and constantly adoring his temple.  Psalm 27.4 CEB Beauty. More specifically, the beauty of the Lord. Is that what I want?  We get glimpses throughout the Bible where we are faced with the question, What's the one thing you want from God?  The first words of Jesus in the Gospel of John are, What do you want (John 1.38)?  Solomon asked for wisdom (1 Kings 3.1-15).  David asked to behold the...

  Made to Be Known, Known to Bring Peace.   We all come into the world looking for someone who is looking for us.   This is one of the most significant insights of neuroscience: our brains together with our bodies are made in such a way that they need others in order to function properly. In other words, at the very level of biology, physiology, and chemistry, we are designed to be interdependent; we are made to thrive by living in a community of vulnerability. We need to be seen by another, to be noticed by another, to be attended to by another, to be known, and to be cared for.   This is not a unique insight, of course. Genesis 1-2 tells us a similar story. It is not good for us to be alone. The world is an intricately ordered place of hyper-relationality. That is to say that all things function best when they are in right relationship with God’s ordering. Humans flourish when they are in right relationship to God, right relationships with others, have a prop...