Meditation 3: God keeps it

Julian discerned three properties in her vision of the thing no bigger than a hazelnut representing all that is made: “In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it, the second is that God loves it, the third is that God keeps it.”

Read the following passages from the Bible and Julian. Sit quietly for several minutes meditating on what it means to believe that God ‘keeps’ what he has made and what he loves.  God holds all that is created in his hands and he is working his purpose out. God has a hold on you. And God’s hold on you is always stronger than your hold on God. What does it mean to believe that God keeps and preserves you? Carry that around in your heart for a day.

From the Bible:

• I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6)

• For it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:13)

• If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31-39)

From Julian:

• See, I am God. See, I am in all things. See, I do all things. See, I never remove my hands from my works, nor never will I without end. See, I guide all things toward the end that I ordain them for, before time began, with the same wisdom, and love with which I made them; how should anything be amiss? (3rd Revelation, p. 199)

• God wishes us to know that he keeps us safe all the time, in sorrow and in joy; and sometimes a man is left to himself for the profit of his soul, although his sin is not always the cause. (7th Revelation, p. 205)

• Because of the tender love which our good Lord has for all who will be saved, he comforts readily and sweetly, meaning this: It is true that sin is the cause of all this pain, but all will be well, and all will be well, and every kind of thing will be well. (13th Revelation, p. 225)

• Our good Lord answered to all the questions and doubts which I could raise, saying most comfortingly: I may make all things well, and I shall make all things well, and I will make all things well. (13th Revelation, p. 229)

• The place that Jesus takes in our soul he will never depart from.  (14th Revelation, p. 287)

• Enduring and marvelous is that love which cannot and will not be broken because of offences. (14th Revelation, p. 300)

• It is his office to save us, it is his glory to do it, and it is his will that we know it; for he wants us to love him sweetly and trust in him meekly and greatly. And he revealed this in these gracious words: I protect you very safely. (14th Revelation, p. 302)

The Julian quotes are from Julian of Norwich: Showings (Classics of Western Spirituality).

Next: Praying with Julian’s Hazelnut

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