He isn't a quitter, so neither are we

God remembered us when we were down. His love never quits. Rescued us from the trampling boot. His love never quits. Takes care of everyone in time of need. His love never quits. Thank God, who did it all. His love never quits. (Psalm 136:23-26)

We are reminded over and over again that God's love never quits - not less than twenty-six times in as many verses within this psalm. His - there is no other basis for our trust, nor our focus - it is him and him alone. Love - evident in nothing more revealing than his grace. NEVER - not just when the urge strikes him, but each and every time we need to see, feel, or experience it in some manner. Quits - as impossible as it is for God to lie, it is equally impossible for him to withhold his love from us. It is good to be reminded of things we have a tendency to forget, isn't it? Our mind wanders and finds distraction in the most unlikely places, all the while setting us up to forget who it is we have placed our trust in and to begin to fear whatever it is we face at the moment. 

God cannot forget us. His focus is not like ours - it is unlimited and without error. Forgetting can be accidental or intentional on our part, so we think God must have that same inability to always remember what he promises, or that he will choose to forget a promise. Scripture doesn't ever say God has "selective remembering" when it comes to us. It says he "cannot" forget us - not that he chooses to not forget us but finds it impossible to go against his character by not having us in his focus 24/7. God isn't just there for us in the "up" times. We go through ups and downs in our emotions and in every other sense - physical, relationship rollercoasters, and in our own thoughts about self or others. We have a tough time consistently recalling his love is always with us. His love is what is there for us when we are down, as much as when we are on top of the world.

Destructive forces cannot keep his love from reaching out to us. We are invaded by all manner of distracting and destructive thought. His love reaches beyond those forces and isn't going to cower when they come but it will reach out to us to lift us away from those forces. I remember being lifted over the yard fence which separated the neighbor's yard from ours as a small child. The storms of summer would come, bringing loud thunder which frightened me terribly. The flashes of lightening could have taken me down in an instant. As the storms raged, I came to count on one thing - the reaching arms of my mother. God's arms reach even farther than my mom's ever did - so why doubt, why fear, why panic? No one escapes his view. His vantage point sees ALL need - not just the loudest or most urgent, but all need. His love can be counted on to counteract our need - regardless of how big or small - they are his to manage and to fulfill. His love - based in grace - never fails. He never falls short. He never attempts and then comes up short. His grace is ever reaching, his love never failing. Chew upon that one today as you begin to think your issues are too small, or your need is too great. His love NEVER fails. Just sayin!

Exist, live, occupy

So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture: They kill us in cold blood because they hate you. We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one. None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us. (Romans 8:32)

When God asks me what I think about something, I give it a moment before I answer him. Why? My answers are usually a bit self-centered - I see them from my perspective FIRST, then I consider them from the opposite side of the relationship. Yet, God wants us to know it is okay for us to consider things from 'our side' of the relationship - he delights in us being that open and honest with him. God put everything on the line for us just so we could have that openness and freedom to be ourselves with him. More importantly, he wants us to get to know who we are apart from Christ as well as who we are in Christ. Why? When we see the bigger picture of what God does IN us and what he has done FOR us, we draw just a bit closer into the safety of his protective arms. Nothing living or dead - high or low - nor what we can imagine in our minds can ever replace the safety we experience when we draw up close to Jesus as he draws up close to us. 

That said, I know the struggle some have with actually 'feeling safe' because they have lived a good deal of their lives in 'unsafe relationships'. It isn't all that easy to just 'feel safe' when all you have known is a pretty harsh, antagonistic time within relationships. We might have come to realize that God draws us closer and closer - even when we seem to resist that closeness. Why? Nothing can ever separate us from his love - even our feelings of mistrust! We have been and are being embraced by his love - period! Feelings will follow - mistrust will fall away - but first we need to begin to just allow him to be close. A dog that has been abused will shiver and shake, cowering away into a corner when approached. Why? It doesn't 'feel safe' around those who resemble the abuser. If you can hear one thing today, hear this - God is love and his love is extended over and over again UNTIL you come to the place where you actually begin to trust it as genuine and just for you!

I frequently remind myself that feelings are a bit fickle - likely to change, unstable, and not at all reliable. I may not 'feel' loved one day, but the next the feelings are quite different. Did God's love change toward me based upon the circumstances of the day or something I did / didn't do? Not at all. His love was as consistent today as it was yesterday - my feelings toward that love just changed once again. If we could learn to appreciate love as more than just feelings, we might come to rely upon what we know and trust with our minds and see demonstrated on a continual basis more than we rely upon our feelings. God's love is consistent - our appreciation and apprehension of his love is what changes. We come to trust as we lean in - not counting on our feelings to guide us so much - experiencing the freedom to just BE with him. BE implies existing, living, occupying a space different than the one previously occupied. Isn't this what love does? It brings into existence, causes one to live, and then draws one into places of safety like one has never known before. Just sayin!

A little self-seeking leads to greater things

Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.” (Matthew 27:37-40)

I did a "Google" search to see how many times "love" appeared in the Bible, figuring it was probably somewhere in the thousands, right? You might be surprised to know that the King James Bible has the word "love" printed only 314 times - a whole 594 times if you throw in all the lovest, loveth, loving, and lovingkindness terms. As important as this "fruit" is, I thought it would likely be "cited" far more in the scriptures. Love is probably the most significant of the fruit we can bear in life - as all the other fruit which may become apparent are really founded on the basis of love. Don't believe me? Try being long-suffering if you have no foundation of love in the relationship. Try finding joy in difficult circumstances if love is not the basis of what holds your head up and gives you hope. The other fruit simply are built upon this foundation of love - a peg upon which all other fruit are hung.

Love is the outflow of the activity of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Apart from the Holy Spirit's activity in my life, the choices I'd make would be pretty self-centered and self-seeking. Let him into the mix and the choices I make are tempered by his presence - they tend to shift from what pleases just me and they take into consideration what might affect another. Love gives evidence of the Holy Spirit's presence in our lives - it is the outflow of his having taken up residence! We can do a whole lot of things to "appear" to have this thing called "love" evident in our lives, but when it is the "real deal", worked into the fibers of our being by the presence of the Holy Spirit, there is nothing which speaks louder, nor clearer to those around us of God's activity within.

The sad thing is how many "places" people go to look for "love". In society today, people seek love in relationships - many failing to find what they pursue because no man or woman is meant to bring this "fruit" into our lives. People think loves come from parents - so if we don't feel "loved", it must be a parent's fault. They do have a responsibility to be good role models for us, but parents are just people like us - they get things wrong, have some pretty mixed-up priorities, and sometimes just don't get this thing we call "love" very well connected in families. Truth is - we all fall way short of "love" until the Holy Spirit begins to bring forth the fruit of love in our lives. No one has it all together apart from his action within - plain and simple. I have spoken much about what takes root in our lives. If we don't look at the root, we cannot impact the fruit. 

Things which get rooted sometimes don't belong. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to begin this uprooting process, but it is also his work to begin to lay down the seed which will take root, producing the "fruit" we call love. Does the sprouting of a seed look for all it needs for its growth "under the soil" or inside the seed? It sends a shoot to the surface, to break free of the confines of the darkness of the soil into the light of day. Why? Light brings resources it did not have when it remained buried under the soil. Love is kind of like this in our lives, too. It is planted there as a tiny seed by the Holy Spirit. It begins to germinate within, changing into something which no longer resembles the seed - sending out roots and a tiny shoot. The shoot of love seeks light - when it finds it, it begins growing in exponential magnitude. Love is meant to be brought into the light - so it can grow and multiply.

Love is first of all "self-seeking". Let me explain. We embrace what we think will benefit us in some way - even the bad stuff we embrace in life we think has some benefit to us, right? We "seek" love because we have a space in our lives where love belongs - a barren place within until it is filled with love. Seek love in the right place and your "love tank" will be filled with the best love possible - the love of God. Seek it in all the wrong places, and your tank will constantly return to empty! God doesn't mind that our need to love is a little self-seeking at first. He makes us this way so we will desire to be filled with all which produces life and godliness. He just hopes we will use this desire to be "filled" to turn to him for the filling! God never intended for us to remain "self-seeking" forever - he wanted us to begin to allow his love to grow within, breaking through into the light of his grace and presence, until we one day begin to recognize what he is "growing within" is meant to touch the world around us.

Love is really an important "fruit" with the capacity to "fill us up" and to "spill over" into the lives of all the many we will touch. It is time for us to begin to ask ourselves if there is evidence of the Holy Spirit's activity in our lives. If not, it may just be time to allow a little uprooting, replanting, and "light-seeking" to encourage the growth of love within so that it can spill to the outside of our lives, as well. Just sayin!