Ephesians 3:17-19 “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, 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.”
Have you ever questioned whether God really loves you? I have. Even though I have a head knowledge of who God is and I know what a marvelous and glorious God that I serve, I know how faithful and kind He has been to me, I know what His Word says – in my heart of hearts there are times that I question whether I am truly loved by Him. It is during the incredibly deep dark valleys of my life, when I am at the end of my rope, when my heart is broken beyond repair and my soul longs for answers as to why it is His will for me to grieve the loss of my child, that I often feel so separated from His love and in my loneliness, in my pain, in my sorrow, the enemy of my soul puts these little thoughts in my head…”Did God really say?” (Gen. 3:1.)
John 8:44 says, “He [the devil] was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” When I am in the midst of the storm and the wind is whipping around, when waves are crashing down on me and the waters threaten to overcome me, I must remember to recognize Satan’s deceptive intrusions into my thoughts. One of his favorite deceptions is to undermine my confidence in my Lord -- he wants me to question my Father’s unconditional and unequivocal love for me. There is a plaque that I saw that said, “The giant in front of you is never bigger than the God inside of you.” How often do I let my circumstances and my situations dictate the veracity of God’s love for me? How many times have I caved in and given up, slinking away, feeling defeated and falling into despair, believing the lie that the enemy has perpetrated that I am not truly loved, that I am unlovable and unworthy of love? Way too often.
As a result of God’s mercy, we are a people who are uniquely and exclusively cared for by God. Over and over again, the Lord demonstrates His mercy and His love for us and the fact that we are recipients of His compassion and His grace makes all the difference is the world as to how we respond to difficulties in life, to tragedies, to tumultuous storms that rise up and seem to pound on us until there is nothing left in us except utter despair. God takes us through the wilderness to stretch us, to expand our spiritual muscles, to allow our deep valley experiences to develop us into women and men of faith. It’s no secret that our spiritual roots grow deep when the winds are raging and the storms are brewing, and it takes being in the wilderness for us to finally dig in and establish that deep relationship where we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we can trust Him We have laid that foundation where we finally come to understand the fullness of God’s love. And it is when we have come through those deep dark valleys that we come to know and comprehend His divine love, and we begin to grasp how wide and long, how wide and deep is the love of Christ. We become so strong spiritually, so compelled by the fullness of God’s impossible love, that we begin to grasp the full extent of God’s attributes and characteristics, His power, His majesty, His wisdom, His mercy, His patience, His kindness and everything He is and does.
– Melody
