The early light is filtering through the window. This is clearly a sign of the change in seasons. Spring is on its way. This morning I’m feeling really emotional. Tears are very near the surface.
Is this self-pity I wonder to myself, as I let them flow? No – its joy, a deep and real awareness of the presence of my Father God. His nearness and – yes I have been mulling over all the ways he has been demonstrating His love in my life. I grasp how much He cares for me and I’m overwhelmed by a sense of complete belonging. I feel He is saying to me that my tears are the passage to His heart – every one is counted and collected into a bottle. He is not punishing me. He is preparing me for something so great and wonderful it can’t even be imagined.
He shows me that, as I hold Emily up and support her on her shaky legs to strengthen them, He is doing the same for me. Only without the uncertainty and fear of her falling. He is totally faithful and can hold and will support me.
And this theme of faithfulness runs through my readings to-day:
Prov. 6:27-35
Isaiah 54:1-10
Hoseah 2:16-31
Genesis 6:5,6.
These all point to His faithfulness to His covenant promises, but shockingly, also the pain He feels at our unfaithfulness, when we break His precepts, with our unfaithfulness. He led Hosea to marry a prostitute so that he would experience some of that pain of unfaithfulness. But unfaithfulness by me when I look at another woman with lust in my eyes is merely a tiny part of what unfaithfulness to God means. Anyone else, anything else that I love and treasure more than Him – hurts Him and is a sign of unfaithfulness and that again is a sign of a flaw in our love for Him.
“Love Me with ALL your heart and with ALL your soul and with ALL your mind and with ALL your strength”.
Can I do this? Well listen to what I heard Him say to me today. “My God My God why have you forsaken me”. No this can’t be from God, that’s not how He encourages me, put it out my mind. Yet there it is again. Then I wake up and hear what He is really saying. Those words were Jesus’ words on the cross, in those awful moments when He was separated from God His Father. But, and here is the real joy, worth shouting about! He said them once so that we may never, never say them. God will never forsake us. Jesus has taken that separation on Himself and He stands in our stead ready to pour His love into us so that we can love Him and the Father in return. He understands our weakness and easily slipping into unfaithfulness but He has lavished us with His grace so that in Him we can progress in our complete love of Him.
Hallelujah! a thousand times over!