Deep Unto Deep

I am constantly overwhelmed by the goodness of who God is and His never-ending love for me. He is the God who never leaves me nor forsakes me, the only one who truly knows how to comfort me and love me. He gives insight into what transpires in His own heart with every weak glance that we lift to Him and with every small choice of our will to love Him. So many of these weak glances and small choices are made in the place of dryness, when we feel nothing. God does not define our love by emotion as we so often do. We love to measure our experience of God by what is felt. Love cannot be evaluated with this system of calculation. God is the One who measures love and what we call barren He often calls fruitful; what we call wasteful He often calls well spent. In our weak, and fainthearted, prone-to-wonder, discouraging hearts of man that we are, yet by my small heart, He is conquered. No army could overcome this mighty One. The weak glance of a lovesick heart, He is overcome by me. (Song of Songs 6:5) It shouldn’t make sense that He would love me so much, that in the little that I have to give Him, He is undone.

At the end of the day, when it feels as though we have experienced nothing, we go to bed and ask God, “it counts, doesn’t it? One day this will all make sense, won’t it?” I believe He says yes- cause in the times when we feel nothing yet choose to believe in His heart and His love- this is what moves His heart. (John 20:29) It is the hardest to look to God when we feel discouraged, so disheartened, so desperate for Him, but feel nothing; yet choose again and again to believe in Him and to not only believe in Him, but receive His love.

God describes His love in the Word as “surpassing knowledge” (Eph 3:19) “…Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, not have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” (1 cor. 2:9) A raging RIVER of affections surges within His heart. It is a holy, violent flow of love. This river of desire within His heart is the one route into the place of intimacy that we long for. We can hear a thousand teachings and read a hundred books, but we will only find the satisfaction of our search in the deep of His heart. It is not casually or from a distance that we pursue His love, but rather we enter this Ocean by a focused abandonment, a violent pursuit and a lifelong drinking. We were made for this love. Our entire lives are wrapped up in this Love. For love we were created, it is our reason for living, our purpose, beginning and end to life, to pursue the love of God and love others with that love.

How many countless hours have I wasted distancing myself from the one that loves me? Too many! Growing up so many of us grew up thinking we had to come to God clean and whole and we had to measure up to our own expectations or if we failed our own self-evaluation, if we didn’t feel deserving to come to Him, than we didn’t. We allow ourselves nearness to Him based upon wrong ideas about why we are permitted access to Him. When we feel successful because of how much time we have spent with Him or all the good things that we have done for Him, we build up our own faulty foundation and feed out false ideas about His character. I can bring nothing to the table to motivate the heart of God into the response of forgiveness. He desires me by His own self-replenishing love that exists within Himself, unaltered by my response. To deny ourselves intimacy with His is to deny ourselves the power of redemption.

Anyways…I could go on, but the point is...as God has just been revealing His heart to me- that He loves us no matter how empty we feel, no matter how little we have to give Him…and we can come to by faith, not by works, not by ‘feeling’ good, but only knowing He loves us. But, with all this, comes suffering and we will never fully know the depth of His love and intimacy without hard times, without the difficult times that lead us into greater revelation of His character!!
We have one moment on the earth…to touch this great place of the Father’s heart. For all eternity future, we will know Him in His glory, in His beauty. We will drink from the River of Pleasures and know the fullness of joy. Yet the tears will be gone. When the Bridegroom is with us, we will no longer mourn (matt 9:15) The times of hope without sight will be memories (Rom 8:24) The pain of believing without seeing will be over. Faith and hope will stay behind while the ‘Love that remains’ will escort us into the ages to come (I cor 13:13)
May 14, 2006