“Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.” – Proverbs 4:23
As a kid, was there anything better than the month of June? When the calendar flipped to “May” excitement started to bubble, and as the month crept on each day felt like a thousand years. But then, with the turn of another page hung on the wall, June brought freedom. It meant summer break. It meant no more school. It means wide open adventures. It meant each day was filled with possibilities.
As adults, June still holds some mystique – the thought of upcoming vacations to the warm summer sun captures my attention even as I write this. I watch my kids fling themselves into June and the joy of an uncluttered schedule. All of our family steps into a new routine in the moth of June. We have more time and we approach things in a slower pace. We don’t wake up in a frenzy, but we take an extra minute to just sit and sip the coffee rather than think of ways to get the caffeine into our blood stream faster.
In 2023, June is known for many things other than just freedom from school. For some it is Pride month, for others Juneteenth represents a past of sadness and a hope for equality. Both of these are identity markers for a lot of people. But I learned, just this morning, that June has another designation; another identity marker – one that I never knew of and one that I’m quite excited to embrace. This is the month that part of the Church of Jesus Christ explores the “Sacred Heart” of God.
You’ve probably seen the picture below. My great aunt was Roman Catholic and I was always fascinated by the pictures in her home. Photos of the pope, of various saints, of crucifixes, and of this strange Jesus with a glowing heart. I never fully understood it – what was that supposed to signify? For my young Protestant eyes, it looked goofy. But what I’ve started to lean is that this image is a place for contemplation and stillness. It’s meant to remind a viewer that the heart of God beats in a cadence that brings life to a broken world.
We just came out of Easter and Pentecost, so it may seem odd that we need a reminder so soon of how much God loves us, but with the calendar seeming to move from sacred time to play time, it kinda makes perfect sense. It’s a time when my identity needs recalibrating. The month of June is a time to meditate on the “love of God with greater intensity, expressed in the heart of Jesus.” It is a time to let our identities be rooted in the love of God in ways that the normal speed of our life might brush over. It’s a time to let summer’s pace seep in and let God’s heart beat in ours.
God is madly in love with you and me. He knows the count of hairs on your head. He watches over the breath in your lungs. He is there when we end each day and when that alarm interrupts our slumber to begin a new one. God cares about the thoughts and worries we have. God celebrates in our moments of joy. God’s concern, God’s care, God’s interest for you and me is for good…for our wholeness.
I’m currently in a season where I need this reminder. I don’t think I’m alone either. I need more than a “God loves me” pep talk, I need a deep resonating stillness that draws me into the wild heart of God. I need more than a calendar flip of escape, I need a month where the wooing all-encompassing love of God is given freedom to undo me. I need a period where the work of Easter is more than a once a year celebration, but a time when the love behind Easter is imprinted on me a new.
I need a time when I can look at the One who was pierced for me and see the extent of his love. I need a time to contemplate and be filled with awe and joy because of the wildness…the ridiculousness of a God who would move heaven and earth so that I could be made whole. I need way more than cultural wars of freedom and sub-identities. I need to let myself be smothered in the identity of being so loved by God that it makes my own heart beat differently.
So, today, I invite you to join me and to contemplate the extravagant love of God. You and I are loved way more than we could ever begin to imagine. Take time to let that imagination run into a freedom bigger than any summer break could have promised. Take a moment to hear the whisper of God’s love over your heart.
You are loved, not for what you can do, or what you think you ought to do. You are loved because He loves you. It’s that love that names us. It’s that love that identifies us. It’s that love that opens the doors to something much larger than our longings for summer’s freedom. It is a love that can fill our deepest desires, and a love that erupts in us a joy that can’t even compete with the final school bell of the year.
Grace & Peace!
“Search for the Lord and for his strength; continually seek him.” – Psalm 105:4
