Outrageously Loved, Honestly Distracted

a confession about roots, pilgrimages, and misordered priorities

Sitting in a coffee shop in Sunnyvale, California, young tech workers buzz around like bees busy in their hive. They move through the line, talking, laughing, scrolling, shuffling forward. Orders in, they bump and make apologies, finding places to stand while waiting amid the bustle. Then they pick up orders, say goodbyes, and head off back to work. I’m camped at a rough-sawn table out of the fray, up against a wall, laptop open, attempting to discern the state of my heart and contemplating what I might write.

Slow down, Justin. How’s your heart? What do you want to say? What’s true?

If I’m completely honest, I don’t really want to write anything.

It’s not that I am down. Or doubting. I’m distracted because I’ve taken on a side project. A passion project. You see, Jenn and I share a similar mix of ancestral roots. But, being out in California, we’ve become somewhat removed from those cultures and genealogies. I don’t like that disconnection, so I’ve decided to plan a series of “reconnection” trips — adventures, pilgrimages — for us as we enter the third year of our three kids being off at college and into the world.

The author Paul Kingsnorth argues that modern culture is suffering from a spiritual sickness because we have severed our ties to ancestry and tradition in favor of a “rootless” consumerism. But to appreciate the past — or rather, each of our individual and unique pasts — is to appreciate the way God has been working through the generations to bring each one of us into existence. For Kingsnorth, appreciation of the past isn’t about worshipping history or anything like that; it’s about making sure we have stable foundations upon which our love of God and neighbor can stand.

That, I like.

So, over the next few years, Jenn and I will be doing some exploring, some hiking, some long walks, and some silent retreats while visiting old, sacred places like the Isle of Iona, Lee Abbey, Oxford University, Canterbury Cathedral, the Holy Hill Hermitage, Ffald-y-Brenin in Wales, the Wild Atlantic Way on Ireland’s rugged west coast; and St. Patrick’s Way through the Mourne Mountains in Northern Ireland.

Okay, I need to pause right here and admit something. I’ve gotten a little preoccupied with planning these trips. I’ve become a bit obsessed with trying to understand the roots and branches of our two family trees — and, truly, “obsessed” is not too strong a word. This “side project” and its planning have captured my imagination. It also requires significant time and attention, and will undoubtedly require much more. Five years of trips evenly spaced over the next half-decade, each one with plenty of complexity. I’ve been reading and searching and researching many things. I’ve been emailing and texting and calling so many people, all eight time zones ahead.

It’s been satisfying … but also unsettling. It’s unsettling because any obsession with any created thing inevitably crowds out and replaces what should be our true obsession: with the Creator of all things. In my case, I confess, it’s done just that. My enthusiasm for these trips has robbed me of the time I could spend with God — slow time in his presence. I tell myself this planning is good, that these trips are good — and they are, for sure. In fact, I sense they might be somehow life-changing for both Jenn and me. But the crowding, the misordered priorities? Those are not so good.

I’ve been here before. I know this feeling. This tension. You probably do, too: when time with God gets crowded by an eagerness for things of this created world — for work, relationships, hobbies, information, entertainment, self-improvement, escape. But when these things — even good things — come first in our lives to the exclusion of experiencing God’s presence during our days, then those days turn upside down. Everything and everyone around us suffers a bit … or a lot. No matter what we try to convince ourselves of, it’s simply not how things are supposed to work.

But that’s where I find myself in this current season. And it hasn’t just been this way for a week or a month. In all candor, it’s been this way since the fall of last year.

When some Pharisees asked Jesus what’s most important in life, he replied like this.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets (Matt. 22:37-40, ESV).

These things are most important in life. Jesus is unambiguous. But right now, I’m not making them the most important. I want to put them first. Well … I think I want to. I mean, part of me wants to … but part of me doesn’t. Part of me wants to lean into my plans, my passions, … my escapism? Part of me just wants to do what I want, my way and when. Then again, I know what my days feel like, how my life and relationships go, when my priorities align properly with Jesus’ wisdom. So, part of me really does want to get these priorities sorted out and put God first. Part of me wants to get things back to how they’ve been with us in the past.

Then again, that other part of me just doesn’t.

Okay, so what can I do with this struggle taking place in my heart?

Truthfully, not so much.

I cannot conjure passion. I cannot create love. I cannot simply summon a loving attitude. Love is something that must be given. Only when given can it be received and appreciated and enjoyed and given away. But only one person can give it first.

Jonathan David Helser’s song “Inheritance (Live)” always reminds me how love works. It’s a remarkable song because it is built around a prophetic, spoken-word exhortation from Graham Cooke. Over the years, both of these men have impacted the nature of my relationship with God, each in their own ways. Hesler, through his worship music. Cooke, through his teaching and prophetic reassurances.

At one point in their song, Cooke says the following in the voice of God:

I love you as you are right now.
I love you 100% as you are right now at this moment.
I love you as you are.
So be loved.

You are the beloved.
It is your job to be loved outrageously.
It is why I chose you.
That is why I set My love upon you;
that you would live as one who is outrageously loved;
that you would receive a radical love,
so radical it will blow all your paradigms of what you think love is.

I will love you outrageously all the days of your life
because I don’t know how to be any different.
This is who I am, and this is who I will always be.
This is the “I Am” that I promised you.
I Am He that loves you outrageously.

And you may love me back with the love that I give you.
You may love me back outrageously
with the outrageous love that I bestow upon you.

These lines are direct reflections of what the Apostle John taught us: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God” and “we love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:7, 19, ESV). This “flow” of love is a reality of this world and the world to come: God loves us outrageously. Then, once loved, we can love him back with the love he’s given. We can also then love the people in our lives. This is God’s economy.

So, back to my priorities, what can I do to reorder them? Well, I can pray. I can pray that God helps me want to get my priorities sorted and straight. I can pray that my Helper, the Holy Spirit, fans that flame of “want to” burning faintly in my heart. I can pray that the Holy Spirit fans that “want to” flame into an inferno. I’ve been there before. I want to get back. At least, I want to want to.

• Jonathan David Helser wrote “Building an Altar To Remember.”

• Timothy Keller wrote “What Is a Spiritual Awakening?”

• Sample ➼ “Crazy Love” by Francis Chan

• Sample ➼ “The Pursuit of God” by A. W. Tozer

• Encounter ➼ “You Are Worthy of Love”

• Audio Experience ➼ “Are You Seeking Peace or Seeking God?”

• Bible Reading Plan ➼ 30-Day Challenge

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• John Marriott is an author, teaches at Talbot School of Theology and is a faculty affiliate of the Harvard University Human Flourishing Program.

• Jay Stringer is an award-winnning author, speaker, researcher, and mental health counselor who helps people uncover the unexpected meaning.

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“Set a fire down in my soul
That I can’t contain and I can’t control
I want more of You, God” —Will Reagan

Another of my all-time favorite worship songs is from Will Reagan and United Pursuit: “Set a Fire.” Reagan’s prayer in the song is that God will fill his heart, body, and life with so much love that it feels like an out-of-control wildfire spreading through his life, his world, his work, his loved ones, and his community.

Will you join me in praying Reagan’s prayer today — that God set a fire in each of our souls that we can neither contain nor control? I hope you do.

We’re in this together, my friend, and I am very grateful for that.

Editor-in-Chief, Rapt Interviews & Wire for Men
Co-executive Director, Gather Ministries