“And a voice came from heaven: “You are my child, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”” (Mark 1:11)
The look on his face was completely different that Sunday morning than it was Friday night when we arrived at the retreat center. We bumped into each other walking to breakfast and he stopped me to say thanks. For the first time in his life he said he had experienced the Heavenly Father’s delight.
We were at a men’s retreat at a beautiful camp in North Georgia. We had just spent time the last two days together working through the Loving Freely content. We spent time talking through core lies, family of origin issues, deep wounds from the past, but also the hope found in the scriptures through Christ. When we first interacted his face was downcast, body posture was non-energetic and tense and there was no joy in his countenance. This morning was different.
What changed? He had embraced his belovedness from the Heavenly Father. We had done an exercise the night before during the Saturday night service in a beautiful chapel in the middle of the North Georgia mountains inviting the men to receive their belovedness. I spoke from this text in Mark 1 about our belovedness and invited the men forward to be reminded of their belovedness.
In Rembrandt’s painting of the Return of the Prodigal Son he beautifully demonstrates the hands of the Father resting on the shoulders of the younger son as he kneels before his dad completely exhausted from the journey wandering away from the Father’s presence. Henri Nouwen describes in his book, Return of the Prodigal Son, the significance of these two hands.
The hands of the Father resting on the shoulders of the younger son means so much in this picture. It means he’s home. It means he’s embraced by the love of a heavenly Father. It means he’s accepted, the beloved, and is going to be okay.
The invitation that Saturday night was to come forward and feel the hands of the Heavenly Father on their shoulders while the pastors whispered in their ears, “You are my child, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” It was one of those beautiful moments where we could tangibly feel the presence of God as man after man came forward to receive their belovedness in Christ. It’s always a beautiful moment when you get to watch grown men moved to tears.
One of the first things Mark mentions in the beginning of his gospel are these words over Jesus; “And a voice came from heaven: “You are my child, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.””
Well pleased. Sonship. Belovedness. Accepted unconditionally by the father. At this point, Jesus had not done anything in ministry to please the father. Let this reality sink in. Jesus was declared the beloved by the Heavenly Father and at this point, he has done nothing.
This idea has completely unraveled the way I relate to the Heavenly Father. Because of my ongoing core lie from my family of origin, I always felt like a failure, particularly to anyone who would play a father figure in my life. Thus, if I was a failure, I needed to do something to please the Father by proving that I wasn’t a failure. As an enneagram 1, there’s a constant voice in the back of my head that I’m no good and a failure.
But this is not the gospel! Before we do anything for God, we are named beloved. This is so counter-cultural and un-American, which we worship the idea that you are what you can make, get, and attain. It’s part of the conditioning that we as people in the west, particularly men struggle with. I know I do greatly.
As a mystic, I really believe God’s love is present at all times and is constantly calling us to be aware of him. When I am fully in tune with God’ presence and living as his beloved, I can sense the hands of the Heavenly Father on my shoulders letting me know that I am his. That I'm going to be okay. That I am good. That I am fully loved, accepted, and he really does delight in me.
Receive your belovedness, family of God. Take a deep breathe that you are loved unconditionally by the Heavenly Father and you don’t have to do anything to earn it!
Sit with the Heavenly Father in the scriptures and understand that all through the Biblical Text there is this beautiful theme of how much God loves his children. John, the disciple that Jesus loved, would go on and write this; “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are!
May you spend a few moments with the Father sensing his hands on your shoulders, because he really does love you and you are his beloved.