“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
I read that verse last September and was struck, again, by the power of God’s love – and how it is infinitely more perfect and overwhelming than any other love we will experience.
That the ultimate demonstration of love is the one that He has already given us – dying for us before we were His friends; while we were still His foes.
Love…love can be hard. It can hurt. Misused and abused, it can cause destruction.
There are people who don’t know how to love. There are people who twist love and use it as a weapon.
And there are times when we can find ourselves fearing it. Fearing its hold on us; fearing what it might cause, and cost, us.
In that fear, we barricade ourselves into rooms in our hearts. We bar the windows, and push the furniture up against the door. We try to protect ourselves at all costs, even if it means attempting to shut out the love of God while we’re at it.
People can deprive you of the love that you need/were promised – but no one can deny you experiencing God’s love, except for yourself.
It’s still there – it’s always there. But, in our fear, we can close ourselves off from feeling it.
I remember, about a year and a half ago, having felt so distant from God.
I prayed one day, through tears, “God, can I please come back to the table?”
The words that came to mind were: “The question isn’t ‘can you come back’, the question is ‘why did you ever leave?'”
God’s love, and grace, and presence are always there. Always available. Nothing can separate us from Him, or His love.
Let’s just be careful that we don’t deprive ourselves of experiencing His presence – which is full of the only perfect love that we will ever have – or deny Him our hearts by hiding in our fear.
~ Hayley Chase
Christ Fellowship member