Blessed New Year.

I love to tell the story of those chosen to never be alone.

In the midst of absolute loneliness, utter darkness, violent and cold universe, God created the World and Adam as the crown of his creation. God saw that it was not good for a male to be alone and gave him a female to make him man.

God made man complete as male and female so male alone is not a man neither is female alone a man, “Man” is male and female. Man was created to have daily fellowship with God in the garden at the cool of the day.

Though man was complete, man was not strong and perfect when separated one from the other. While window-shopping in paradise Eve talked to a stranger, an enemy of God and preferred to listen to and obey him rather than to God by eating the forbidden fruit. Later Adam in turn preferred to listen to and obey his wife Eve by eating the forbidden fruit.

Man, even in his estate of sinlessness and completeness proved to be weak when left by himself. Man the sole heir of paradise and the undisputed friend of God preferred darkness instead of light. This is what came to be known as “The Fall.” Indeed, it was a “Fall” because it was falling from the glorious honor of being a little less than an angel to the category of being an enemy of God.

Thus, man the greatest tycoon of the universe became once again the loneliest, poor and miserable creature without a true friend by preference.

If loneliness before creation was horrible, “Loneliness” after creation and a taste of Paradise and love and the fellowship of God at the cool of the day was indeed living hell. Paradise, without God, is worthless.

Today is winter in Tacoma and we are under a foot of snow; it is cold, dreary, wet and overcast. I am closer to the North Pole than to the warm place of my birth. I am on the fifth floor of an apartment building and as I sit past midnight at the edge of my bed I think thoughts of my own loneliness and what moved God to send his Son not only to make me complete with a companion but also to make me perfect with the glorious oneness with him in Jesus.

If an acorn doesn’t fall far from the Oak tree, then I must confess that I who did not know my father have a trace in my genes and that is the love for my family and friends only second to Jesus.

When Jesus said, “I am with you always” it is as if he would need to love me, a worthless worm. God seems to put himself in the position of disadvantage to love as someone so lowly.

I love God with all my heart and love those who he loves. But the big deal is not my love for God nor my love for others, but where did I get that power to love?

I have no other way to understand this unless I go back to scripture and believe in childlike manners words such as, “For God who so loved the world…or “God is Love…” or God who says, “I will be with you always.” “Nothing can separate me from the Love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord”.

God keeps his friends to the end and beyond. I do not think much about those who keep a skin-deep relationship with their friends. Love is from God. I count a man’s wealth in the number of his true and old friends. If you have friends, then you have something, if you do not have friends, you have nothing.

I would have liked the beatitudes to read as, “bless are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…” as those who long to live right in love and fellowship.

When I search for the answer to the wonder of Fellowship, I have no place to go but to God who so loved the world, to God who is love and to God who says I will be with you always. That I will never be separated from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

By the way, it should not hurt to love, but if it does, then that means you must have learned how to love because it has hurt you to love.

Dying to self though painful is necessary in order to have Jesus living in me as the hope of glory. There is a throne in my heart and I have no business sitting on it because it belongs to Jesus alone.

When I wonder what I want the most for myself in life, I come to square one and conclude that I want to love and fellowship with Jesus and the ones I love and love me, in the playpen of paradise at the cool of the day.

Gerry Gutierrez

PS. Ben is visiting Tacoma. My grandchildren are having so much fun in the snow.