Explore The Monastic Rhythms That Make for Healthy LeadershipSample

Living in the Experience of Being God’s Beloved

The ancient community of monks called the Benedictines took three vows when they committed themselves to the community. The first vow was “stability.” For the monks, their stability was deeply geographical: a vow to live in a particular monastery for life! The result of such radical stability inside their community was depth—a rootedness in God and a rootedness in fellowship that inclined them toward gravitas. 

The thrust of this devotional series will be to draw out the ancient wisdom of the monastics and apply it to the challenges of modern life, where the need for rootedness is greater than ever. Our culture is addicted to “muchness and manyness,” in the words of Richard Foster, and our typical response is to do more and do it faster. The urgency culture is not conducive to gravitas, but what is the alternative?

Today’s Scripture finds Paul in intercession for his friends, that they will have their concept and experience of God’s love expanded exponentially. It’s a love that “surpasses knowledge,” something that can’t be communicated as much as imparted at a soul level. It’s a holy encounter that enlarges us and fills places once ruled by fear and insecurity. And the divine love, once personalized and internalized, has a singular effect: stability. “Being rooted and established.”

We know intellectually that God loves us, and at times we even feel it, but can we actually live in an ongoing awareness of being intrinsically beloved? That God’s passion and delight are directed toward us unceasingly, regardless of our performance? Now, this begins to meet our desperate need for stability.