“Your love is crashing over me, surging like a raging sea, immerse me in the wonder of Your love. A downpour of unending grace, consuming all my reckless ways, my sin submerged, Your love has saved my soul. Your love is like a storm.” –Hillsong Y&F There have been many times where I felt God’s love like a storm. It was like I was knocked off my feet and the wonder of His grace and mercy swept me away like a current. But there have been many other times where I haven’t felt the storm of love, rather the storm of guilt, or failure. Their waves seemed to beat over me and in those moments it has been hard for me to believe that God’s love is still constant, even when I can’t feel it. It was during one of those times that I was reading a book by Max Lucado and I stumbled upon this quote which changed my view of God’s love completely: “God loves you just the way you are. If you think His love for you would be stronger if your faith were, you are wrong. If you think His love would be deeper if your thoughts were, wrong again. Don’t confuse God’s love with the love of people. The love of people often increases with performance and decreases with mistakes. Not so with God’s love. He loves you right where you are.” How? How does He love me like I am now? How can He love me after I mess things up time and time again? After I choose my couch over my cross and fail to live out even the simplest of commands? I can’t even love myself in those moments. But still He loves me. Though I spurn Him. Ignore Him. Reject Him. Despise Him. Disobey Him. He won’t change. My goodness can’t increase it nor can my evil diminish it. My faith does not earn it any more than my stupidity jeopardizes it. His love doesn’t love me less if I fail or more if I succeed. He just loves. I struggle to accept this love; I struggle to believe that it remains constant even in my worst moments. Maybe you do too. I struggle to come before God when I feel dirty and ashamed because deep down I can’t understand how He can love me then when I can’t love me then. I struggle with how He can see beauty and potential when all I see is brokenness and pain. Maybe you do too. I don’t know your deepest secrets, or your darkest of sins…maybe no one does. But God does, and He still loves you. In fact, that dirty, discontent, self serving, ugly part of you is what He hung for. Bled for. Died for. But it doesn’t end there: He also rose for that version of you. He rose for that version of you so that you don’t have to stay in that dark dirty place. That is the wonder of His love: that He would die for you in your darkest state because He loves you too much to not give you the hope for a brighter tomorrow. So run to Him. Maybe that means asking Him to rule your life, or maybe it's you coming back to your Father and letting yourself be reminded that no amount of mistakes will dilute His commitment to you. Let His love encase you. His arms are strong enough to bear your burdens, His grace deep enough to heal your throbbing wounds. His forgiveness is great enough to clear your slate of wrongs, and His heart is big enough to restore you. Let it crash over you, be immersed in the wonder of His love. Get drenched in the downpour of unending grace that will never stop consuming your reckless ways, and believe that you, right now, are so incredibly loved. "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." --Romans 8:38-39
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