Jesus said to his disciples:
“As the Father loves me, so I also love you.
Remain in my love.
If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father’s commandments
and remain in his love.
“I have told you this so that
my joy might be in you and
your joy might be complete.”

When I spend time with any gospel passage I feel challenged. This happened again this morning with today’s gospel.

On first glance I felt comforted in the powerful reminder from Jesus that I am loved and that my experience of this love brings me joy, complete joy.

And then I pondered the word “remain.”  “Remain” in my love. The message is clear. Being in God’s love is our default setting. It’s not that we work and pray hard to earn this love, it is a natural, a given. However we are free to escape this love and tragically too often that is what I do.

I leave my “home” in God’s love, and run off in every other direction, grasping at anything that promises a moment of happiness. And this is a problem we share. We are all runners – running from God’s love, escaping the relationship in which we are most loved and compulsively putting all our trust in projects, possessions and people.

An Invitation:

Today, every time you think of it, take five seconds to return to your default setting, that is, knowing that you are loved by Jesus. In this relationship everything else in life falls into right perspective.