The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is the one about whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is really greater than me because he existed before me. Even I didn’t recognize him, but I came baptizing with water so that he might be made known to Israel.” John testified, “I saw the Spirit coming down from heaven like a dove, and it rested on him. Even I didn’t recognize him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘The one on whom you see the Spirit coming down and resting is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. I have seen and testified that this one is God’s Son.” ~John 1: 29-33 (CEB)
“Jesus does not shift the balance in the relationship between creature and Creator. This balance rests only on the human’s act of abandonment and God’s act of gratuitous love.
I should say that, although Jesus has given us the “photograph” of the Father in the gospels, the mystery, the “unknowing” of God remains. We see, and yet we do not see; we become acquainted, and yet we still need to become further acquainted; we know, but we are still very ignorant. It is a photograph that we are able and unable to see.
It depends on you. You are the camera, able to fix inside yourself what you see and what you don’t see in the gospels and thus make a photograph of your own. You know that the power of fixing an image in the soul depends on the Holy Spirit, who is love, who alone is able to make that photograph in proportion to your intimacy with him.” ~From The God Who Comes by Carlo Carretto
I am a lens through which to experience God. Only I can zoom in on the pictures that are meant for me. The pictures are mine to capture. No one can take them for me; I have to gather my own pictures of God’s love. My life is a scrapbook pieced together carefully and intentionally by Him. It is a story of His love for me.
Thank You Father for the pictures I have stored in my heart of Your love for me. Help me to remember to look through this scrapbook of Your love for me regularly so that I may never forget that I am beloved by You. Amen.
Pieces of the Puzzle 