I’m surrounded by love. My life has been full of God’s grace and mercy and I have no idea what it would be like without that. I do know that had I reaped what I had sown my life would have been so much different. I had sinned against God, gone my own way and yet He loved me, patiently waited for me to turn back to Him, drew me with His unfailing love. Of all people I know how unworthy I am of that love, yet I know that it is mine.
I have never been closer to my LORD than now. He has revealed Himself to me in ways that I could have never conceived of before, and it is because I have surrendered to Him at last. This has been a difficult time because it is painful to kill the flesh, kill the desires, lay aside my own plans and dreams. But it has been glorious in that I have never known so much love as I do now. My life long search for love has led me to His arms - and it is safe.
That is not to say that I have lost my desires or had the yearning of my heart quieted. The difficult part is to keep focus on who He is, what He desires from me, how He loves me.
There are so many people around me that have blossomed into such beautiful love relationships. Sometimes it is so overwhelming that I have to get away from them. My heart cries out to feel God’s arms around me, to look into His eyes and see the love there that He has for me.
Over the years I’ve learned that we are the ‘body’ of Christ, His hands and feet, His arms, His physical presence here on earth. So when I see that love demonstrated between a husband and wife my understanding of God broadens and expands and I have to tweak my conception of who He is. It is awesome to behold His love given from one person to another. It feels like I am intruding on a very intimate moment. I know that He is present in their relationship and that He reaches out to hold His loved one through their arms.
So it also makes me sad, and causes me pain. My heart has been given to Him and my body and heart longs to have His presence to touch and to have those intimate moments with. I long to have my LORD love me with human form the way He does for all of these people around me.
This is a facet of God that I had never conceived of before. To have Him use me to love others has been happening for years. I feel His heart when I see His wounded hurting people and I am compelled to reach out my arms and touch them and love them as He does. My whole being wants to melt into Him and yield to be His fleshly servant to care for them. The idea of having Him use me to love is not new. I’ve been doing it for as long as I have been His even though I never put it together that that was what was happening until now. So I have sown His love into many people. And now I am surrounded by people that have His love and share it and show it openly. So my heart aches to have those arms around me. In this I want badly to reap what I have sown, or more accurately to reap what has been sown through me by Him.
I’m not sure how to describe that. It is a knowing like none other, when God is in people and the light of His love shines from them. When a man and woman are joined in marriage as one, with God the Father, Son, & Holy Spirit living and alive within them, the deep intimacy that is in that relationship together with the LORD is like none other. To be able to express that love to each other knowing that God Himself is expressing His love to each of them in such an intimate way is the knowing that He had with Adam and Eve. They were all united as one.
How painful for Him when sin entered and His relationship was severed from them. They were not the only ones that lost connection then – God also lost that relationship with them. But because Christ was that bridge to bring us back, for us we have the ability to once again have that deep intimate relationship with our LORD - He gives us to each other for that expression. No other relationship demonstrates that joining connection than the marriage relationship of being united as one. It is His desire to know us that intimately, to express that intimate love to us through our spouse, together, united, one with Him.
So my heart continues to yearn for that deep intimacy with Him. I desire to be able to give and receive His love in that way with my spouse. I used to think that God did not choose a spouse for us, that we had options within the parameters of the Word and that it would be good. Now that I have seen with my own eyes how He designed us to match perfectly with that one other person, I know that He had and has a plan for each of us. That He has prepared a mate that is suited to each of us perfectly for His purpose. His purpose of demonstrating His love to the world. His purpose for us to live out that relationship that He desires to have with each of us again. I long to be able to give myself to Him in this way. I long to be able to abandon my heart mind soul and body to His love.
This is not about physical desires, emotional yearning, or neediness. This is a spiritual journey that has brought me to the throne room of His Majesty and my yearning and desire and longing is to worship Him with all that I am, every thing that I do, all of my actions, thoughts, words, and deeds. The union of marriage was designed to do just this. He is present and glories in the love that is shared between a man and wife. He said “It is good”. I believe Him.
So this pain that I have right now is birthing the revelation of His desire for me. It is preparing me for His perfect mate for me, that He had planned before the foundations of the world, who would, with me, form the complete and perfect union with our LORD. It is for His purpose that we are meant to be joined. The time of preparation seems long, is painful, and hard to bear. But it is a season to learn to depend on Him for even this, and to gain clarity of purpose. For it’s only in His will that I am free. It is in the surrender that there is strength and purpose. It is in the submission that there is revelation and understanding. It is in the yielding to His desires that gives life meaning and satisfaction.
Though the cross was painful beyond comprehension, what joy to be so given to the Father that even the pain and suffering was a wonderful act of worship. How precious Christ’s passion to yield to His will. I can catch a glimpse of the glory in that submission where even this great pain and sacrifice is such a priceless gift of love to God the Father that it was a pleasure for my Jesus to accomplish. His heart set on that great love, to give, to receive, to be, unwaveringly yielded and fixed to the task of reuniting us with Him. What praise! What worship! What love!
My eyes are opened to it now and I just want to wallow in it. I want to soak it in and then go spread it around like a virus so that everyone catches it. Oh how great a Love beyond description is our God. Love MUST be expressed. He had to retrieve us for Himself so that His love could be shared. He desired us that much.
Yes. It’s all about the love.
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