Being Beloved
I’ve been in a season of struggling with my belovedness. Instead of just being beloved, I have found myself needing to prove it and falling desperately short. I was praying about it. Telling Jesus that I feel empty in the inner place where my belovedness is known. The response that so quickly and spontaneously came from my pen was “Yes, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t beloved.” He didn’t deny the reality of where I was, but he spoke a grounding truth underneath it, to cradle it. His response felt like a cherishing of me. Isn’t that being beloved?
Our conversation continued. There was an invitation to live into my belovedness. Not a demand or requirement, an invitation. I laughed within. “Sure, that sounds wonderful,” I thought, “like freedom.” Though, what this actually looked like felt nebulous and unreachable. “How do I do this?” I scrawled across my paper. Like God so often does, he answered my question with a question. “Who in the Bible lived well into their own belovedness?”
My mind spun through the Bible characters I’ve known since childhood and settled onto a few. David. Daniel. John—the Beloved disciple. Mary Magdalene.
Another question came: “What did it look like for them to live into their belovedness?” I remembered their stories.
My pen took off. They accepted and responded to their desires-- the promptings of their minds, hearts, and their bodies. They moved toward Jesus. They lived out their calling and convictions. They released their fear. They saw it all as holy.
“Then David danced (more accurately, whirled about) before the Lord with all his might” 2 Sam 6:14. Even Nathan, the prophet spoke, of his belovedness and encouraged it. “Go do all that is in your heart, for the Lord is with you.” 2 Samuel 7:3. David had it in his heart to build a house for God, and God delighted in this tug of his heart. It was not the calling of God on his life, and David was ok with that. He did his part of the project’s work passionately, gathering supplies and making plans for the temple. The fact that building it wasn’t his, didn’t make him question his belovedness. He made the dream in his heart possible for the next generation. I can’t ignore the fact that despite his act of deep sin, David lived life being beloved. He didn’t ignore his sin. In my thinking, his knowledge of his belovedness aided him in the wrestling found in Psalm 51. It seems that even before David was the great King, he had made peace with being beloved. How else can you explain the fact that he fought Goliath with a sling, a stone, and no armor? How else can you explain his willingness to stand with his conviction that God is sovereign when given opportunity to protect his own life by killing Saul.
Daniel stood with his convictions even in the face of death as well. His convictions led him into the presence of God. His body responded to his conviction to eat only vegetables with strength and thriving. When an opportunity came to use the gifts that God had given him, he stepped into it not away from it, by interpreting the king’s dream. In all these situations it was Daniel being the beloved he was that impacted the world around him and gave him profound experiences with The Holy God.
John called himself the “disciple that Jesus loved”. What boldness with his belovedness! What would change if I thought about myself as the “daughter whom Jesus loves” or “the woman whom Jesus loves”? Would I have the courage to curl up next to Jesus as John did at the last Passover celebration before Jesus died? Would I have the intimacy with Jesus needed to hear his callings for me as John did when Jesus introduced John to his mother as his son or when he sat down with a pen to write down the vision he had of Jesus’ eternal reign? In the face of horror, like watching Jesus being arrested and crucified and resisting persecution himself because of his love for and from Jesus, John was able to remain grounded in his convictions and trust in Jesus because of his experience with his belovedness. And so emerges the question, how did John get to this place of calling himself as “the disciple that Jesus loved”?
Mary Magdalene, followed her urge to take valuable perfume and wash the feet of Jesus with it and wipe it with her hair. Only one with a knowing of her belovedness would dare do such a thing. She knew Jesus. She trusted he would receive her and indulge the moment as a beautiful connection. She knew that despite her days of darkness and demon possession Jesus had seen her worthy enough to bring into the light. Her worth came from her belovedness, not her belovedness from her worldly worth. She remained with Jesus through his crucifixion and beyond, going to the tomb with spices to prepare his body for a proper burial. It was in her remaining with him, that gave her the opportunity to be the one who first saw Jesus resurrected, a part of her story of belovedness and her story of beloved calling.
None of these people qualified themselves to be beloved. Being beloved qualified them to live abundantly.
Suddenly it didn’t seem so nebulous. The reachability of the invitation took shape. The recognition of the way my own body, mind, and heart long to whirl about with all my might and the callings and convictions that seem to be rooted in me. However, the invitation still felt difficult. Fear stands in its doorway. At least this is true when my gaze is turned inward on my qualifications. It is when I turn to my gaze upon the gaze of Jesus whose eyes settle on me with delight, that I am able to look back upon him with delight and step into being the beloved. With this his smile broadens, which makes me whirl about all the more…
“Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart!” Psalm 37:4