Never Not Loved

While in college, I had learned to drink coffee to stay awake late at night for those all-nighter studying times (usually the result of not studying enough daily).  A consequence of that was learning to drink coffee in the morning after waking up (usually tired).  Upon one morning, I woke up early, got a cup of coffee and stepped outside my apartment on the 2^nd floor and sat on the steps.  From there I could see the sunrise. 

As the sun was clearing the trees and its warmth covered me in the brisk fall I could tell the Spirit was knocking on my door.  I breathed a silent prayer and God leaned in upon me and said, “What the hell are you doing?”  Okay, maybe He didn’t use a curse word, but it was just as bold and powerful.  He made an obvious call to me to realize that He should have a dominant place in my agenda and decision-making.

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” – Lamentations 3:22-23

Even when I was living within my own rules and running my own life and doing what I wanted to do, God refused to let go of me.  And so it is with everyone called by His name.  He will never stop pursuing you.  Even now, wherever you are in your daily/weekly walk with God, He pursues you and wants to have a closer relationship.  

My own experience in the relationships with my children is that sometimes you have to back away from them so the option for a close relationship can exist at another time, when they are ready.  My friend Justin said sometimes raising older teens it is like watching them through a window.  You get to see what they are doing, but you are not allowed to help them UNTIL they open the window.  If you break the window in, they will build a wall over it.  I think there are times when God backs away and simply waits for us to open that window.  But it is important for us to know that He is always there and ready with His arms extended and hands open. (This certainly doesn’t apply for all situations, sometimes the room has to be stormed and we need our butt’s kicked so we’ll see God more clearly.)

In Jeremiah 31:3, God says “I have loved you with an everlasting love”.  Jack Winter described everlasting as “There was never a time in all of eternity when we were not loved by God.”  Think about that for a second, there was never, there is never, and there never shall be a time when God doesn’t love you.  Paul prayed fervently for the Ephesians in 3:17-19, “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.”

No matter what decisions you’ve made today, this past week, this past year or years ago, God pursues you because He loves you.  I hope all of us are able to rest in that comfort of that reality today and every day.