The Delight of the Beloved

A number of years ago I started to get serious about making fasting and prayer part of my work routine. I knew I needed to depend on God more, and I knew I needed His guidance to make wise decisions at work. So periodically I would take off to sit by a nearby lake for some time of praying and listening to God. There was never a shortage of things needing prayer – I always had a long list! And so I prayed. I sat. I waited to hear God tell me the answers to whatever issues I was bringing that week. And every time as I sat waiting for those holy words of wisdom to come, I would hear this:

“I love you.”

Unsure of whether I had heard God correctly, I would again pour out my frustration and confusion over a particular problem, straining to understand what He was saying in response. But I just kept hearing the Exact. Same. Thing.

“I love you.”

It was exasperating.

“That’s sweet, God. I love you, too,” I replied. But I have a real decision to make here about what to do and I could really use an answer. You are the Almighty and all, you know.”

And yet again the same answer came in response. “I love you.”

It took me TWO YEARS to finally get the hint and start asking God why He kept saying that. Why was “I love you” the answer to every problem I put before Him?

It’s not that I didn’t know God loved me. Of course I had John 3:16 memorized. I knew the theology of God’s love. And I sang about it at church all the time – God’s love was as deep as the ocean! As high as the sky! As wide as the east is from the west!

But I still didn’t understand it. When I finally started to ask Him about why He kept repeating those words to me – “I love you” – I began to see how much my identity had been rooted in the wrong things. Every time I came before God with my list of requests it was with a heart of fear and insecurity. I was worried I was going to get something wrong, that I would make a bad decision, that I’d end up a failure. And although a lot of that had to do with my own pride, it also was about feeling like I owed God something. I had a debt to repay. It didn’t matter that my theology-trained, Sunday-schooled brain knew I couldn’t repay that debt. The knowledge of God’s love for me was making me anxious to demonstrate how I loved Him back.

This week I’ve been pestering my friends with a question – “What do you feel when you think about God’s love for you?” It’s so fun to watch their faces break into a smile at those words! It’s a beautiful moment when the love of God clearly brings delight to their soul. But too often the smile fades and they answer the question with a feeling of duty and obligation. “I have to try harder.” “I need to love God more.”

In his letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul writes:

“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.” (Ephesians 3:18-19).

My challenge for you is to try to do only that. Only to grasp the great love of Christ. Only to feel God’s love for you. Only to ponder how wide and long and high and deep it is. Make up your own metaphor to express it. Delight in it. But don’t jump ahead. Don’t be quick to think of how you need to act in response. Just meditate on God’s great love for you.

I’ve found that the more I meditate on that, the more the rest happens on its own. When I feel God’s love for me, I find that I can trust Him more. My faith grows. God loves me, so I don’t need to worry about everything. I can be more patient. And rooted in God’s love, free of anxiety, guilt or shame, I can love others more. His undeserved love for me allows me to be more forgiving. That’s why God kept answering my prayers by saying “I love you” over and over again. Understanding His love for me helped me to approach any problem that came my way with more grace, patience, faith, and love.