Deep & Wide

I am awestruck by the incredible depth of God’s love for me. I see it in my life, in the lives of those around me, and in creation itself.  The word of God has much to say about our father’s love for us. Ephesians 3:16-18 are some of my favorite verses on this subject.

“I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources He will empower you with inner strength through his spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in Him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.”

His love for you and me is deep and wide. Deep: his love permeates my very being, sinking down into my soul. He desires for us to have a full awareness of his great, unceasing and amazing love.  This love is to be accepted with no doubt as to its realness. Have you ever sat on a comfy chair to find that it has sucked you in? God’s love surrounds and enfolds you: like a caterpillar safe in its cocoon, like a joey in its mama’s pouch, we are protected, surrounded, loved.  Wide:  his love encompasses every area of my life and is with me wherever I go. I am never away from his love for me. Like a light piercing the most complete and dense darkness or a shadow cast wider than the tallest mountain, his love falls over me, casting a wide and complete net.

As children, we accept this love without reservation, as adults we strive to be worthy of it.  Ephesians 3:19 goes on to say, “May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully, then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.” From our understanding and experience of God’s love comes completeness. We don’t deserve his love because we are complete, completeness comes after accepting His love.

Be Still

As a kid I think I was constantly told to “Be Still”! Admittedly, I was a serious wiggle worm with a propensity to keep moving. Sitting still was not on my daily list of things to do. Stillness is still not something that is always on my daily list of things to do. Being still is an art, and it is one that I have striven to cultivate in my own life. Our society values people who are on the go, and so do our churches. Scripture tells us to do things like: follow God, pursue righteousness, and flee from temptation.  All of these things require action. However, we are also told to “be still”. What purpose is served by being still? Psalm 46:10 tells us, “Be still and know that I am God.” Stillness allows us to put focus on God: the creator and sustainer of our souls. 

Sometimes I enjoy being still…quiet, aloneness, and introspective. I have found that stillness can be a state of the heart and mind, not of being. I spent a lot of time in my car driving back and forth to my mom’s house while she was terminally ill. I found this to be an incredible time of aloneness, and of thoughtful contemplation. I would often drive the full hour to her house and realize I had not even turned on the radio; I had been consumed by the stillness around me, and in that stillness, when we allow Him, God speaks.

“I wait quietly before God, for my victory comes from Him. Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in Him”. Psalm 62:1 & 5

I can rest in Gods’ care for me, and can put my confidence in Him to give me hope and victory over whatever is going on in my life. Cultivating stillness allows me to spend time in quiet contemplation before God, allowing Him to speak into my life.

“Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself, like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother’s milk. Yes, like a weaned child is my soul within me”.  Psalm 131:2

Instead of worrying about all manner of things, I can rest in God’s care for me, the way a baby relies on its mother for rest and nourishment. Then, weaned, grown away from milk, ready for more. My soul, having found its rest in God, is ready for more.

Ringing in the New Year

Most local churches used to have towers with bells in them. The bells were rung daily to mark time, and also for special events. In England it used to be customary to ring the church bells at midnight on New Year’s  day, to both send out the old year-as you would ring the bell for someone who had died-and to welcome in the New Year.  Because of this, we “Ring in the New Year.”

 I have always found New Year’s to be a little bit of a let-down. The holidays are over, my house looks bleak without the Christmas tree and decorations, and there seems to be a slight air of unrest.  It is as if the New Year is asking for more of me.  There are certain things that I find myself doing: cleaning closets, organizing drawers and paperwork, exercising more, eating better.  Each year I think I will make some changes. I decide this is the year that I won’t let my paperwork pile up before I file it.  I will stop hiding chocolate in the cupboard and eating it when no one is looking. I will walk my dog more often and go to yoga twice a week. I will spend more time in the Word.  Somehow, someway, I crave change.

This year, the New Year has already been “rung in”, but it isn’t too late to affect change in my life.  I want to view change as a healthy and regular part of life. In truth, change is coming whether I want it or not. However, like the New Year, I can choose the way I ”ring it in”. If I am standing still, if life is standing still around me, I am stagnant and unable to grow. If I am open to change in my life, in my heart and in all that goes on around me then I am ready to receive whatever it is the Lord has for me this year.  And in this world of change, my God remains steadfast. He remains the constant to which I will cling.

“Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you.” Is 54:10