Jesus loves you. That profound fact has been changing lives around the world for centuries. Yet, there are days when you don’t experience this completely in your own life. So, how do you get to the very core of that statement on a deep, personal level? Keri Wyatt Kent wants to help you fully experience the heart of Jesus’ love in Deeply Loved . Using the gospel stories of Jesus, reflection, and personal stories, Kent will guide you through 40 days of how to create space in your life for Jesus to show up and love you. Deeply. Through her writing and speaking, Keri Wyatt Kent helps people to connect authentically with God and to be spiritually transformed. She is the author of nine books, including Breathe: Creating Space for God in a Hectic Life , and the coauthor of several others. Keri frequently travels around the country to speak and lead retreats, and she is a regular contributor to several magazines, websites, and blogs. Keri is a member of Willow Creek Community Church, where she has taught, led groups, and volunteered in a variety of ministries for more than two decades. She and her husband, Scot, live with their teenage son and daughter in Illinois. Deeply Loved 40 Ways in 40 Days to Experience the Heart of Jesus By Keri Wyatt Kent Abingdon Press Copyright © 2012 Abingdon Press All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4267-4481-5 Contents Day 1 / An Only Child, Day 2 / Walking with Jesus, Day 3 / Slow Down, Day 4 / Review of the Day, Day 5 / Waking, Day 6 / Through the Day, Day 7 / Prayer of Adoration, Day 8 / Companion, Day 9 / Alone, Day 10 / Quiet, Day 11 / Meditate on the Promises of God, Day 12 / With, Day 13 / Distracted, Day 14 / Show Me, Day 15 / The Blues, Day 16 / Creation, Day 17 / Direction, Day 18 / Intercession, Day 19 / Simplicity, Day 20 / Self-examination, Day 21 / Confession, Day 22 / Gratitude, Day 23 / Listen, Day 24 / Vulnerable, Day 25 / Hurry, Day 26 / BFFs, Day 27 / Sabbath, Day 28 / Trust, Day 29 / Beloved, Day 30 / Redeemed, Day 31 / Remember, Day 32 / Daddy, Day 33 / Serve, Day 34 / Doubt, Day 35 / Pray, Day 36 / Ambassador, Day 37 / Abide, Day 38 / Restore Our Sight, Day 39 / Mystery of Growth, Day 40 / Celebration, Notes, CHAPTER 1 DAY 1 AN ONLY CHILD "Look, I myself will be with you every day until the end of this present age." (Jesus, in Matthew 28:20) Patti and Bruce, feeling a tug from Jesus, welcomed a four-year-old foster child into their home. Originally the child welfare organization told them Jonathan would be staying with them and their four other children for about a month. Five months later, after a couple of attempts to place him back with his mother, he's still living with Patti and Bruce. The process has been messy and complicated. This little boy is sweet, charming, and winsome at times, but angry and confused at other times. So sometimes he cuddles and hugs, but other times he acts out: yelling, scratching, hitting, and even biting. My friends have loved this child, even as he tries their patience, even as they sometimes despair over the difficulties his birth family faces: poverty, illness, and so on. When they tuck him in at night, they ask him, "Jonathan, when God looks at you, what does he say?" And they have taught him to answer, "He says, 'I sure do love that little boy!'" When Jonathan first came to them, he did not know the answer to the question. In fact, in his little four-year-old heart, perhaps Jonathan's circumstance caused him to assume that if God even looked at him at all, God would have said, "There's a bad boy, so bad his mommy had to send him away." But that is not true. And so Patti and Bruce have taught Jonathan to replace the lies with truth. And the truth is, God sure does love that little boy. The truth is, God sure does love you. When he looks at you, his first thought is love. The question for many of us is, does God even look at us? Could he pick our face out of the crowd? Or does he just love us out of obligation because he loves all people? Does he love us generally, along with all the other people in the world, or does he love us specifically, intimately? Augustine asserted, "God loves each of us like an only child." You may not believe that. Or perhaps you do believe it on an intellectual or theological level, but you don't feel it. You have never, or perhaps only rarely, experienced that deep love. But what if he was right? We sometimes have trouble feeling God's love. But there are practices we can engage in that will help us experience his loving presence. There are things we can do, ways we can train our hearts, so that we can truly know his love personally and profoundly. Dallas Willard writes that human beings are meant to live in ongoing conversation with God. It is possible to live with an awareness of his presence throughout our day. In the 1600s, a monk known only as Brother Lawrence wrote a series of letters and journal entries that became the