These aren't really going to be my own thoughts... I'm reading "Soul Cravings" by Erwin McManus right now, and I wanted to share something that caught my attention...
"The truth of the matter is that we're uncomfortable with God. We're disoriented by the way he loves.
We want God to love us for an endless number of good reasons.At the same time, we find ourselves nervous before him because he sees right through us and knows everything that isn't lovable. He tells us that he is our place of rest and acceptance and unconditional love, yet we cannot reconcile this love. We know who we are. We know all that is unlovely within us. We wonder how we have become worthy of such love, and that's what worries us - we know we're not. So we run. We run from God because he sees us best; we run from God to escape our own sense of unworthiness; we run from God because we are certain that the closer we come to him, the more guilt and shame we will feel.
It's just too hard to believe that if you come near to God, you will find yourself not drowning in condemnation, but swimming in compassion.
Jesus called to all who were weary and who found their souls exhausted to come to him and find rest. He is telling us that God will be for us our place called home.
We run from God because we long to be loved and we have convinced ourselves that the One who is most loving could not and would not embrace us.
We run from the One our souls crave."
This is a reoccuring theme in my life... never being able to fully grasp how God could REALLY, deeply love me.
Not if he knows me, the real me. Not if he had any idea of my pride or envy or selfish ambition...
and yet, despite knowing my messed up, junky inmost being, God loves me with a love that I could never have thought possible - a love that will never cease to amaze me.
My favourite verses are found in Ephesians 3:17-19 : "And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. "
What an amazing life I can live in the undeserved and precious love of my Lord.
- J
