Experiencing God's Presence #163

Experiencing God's Presence #163

And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.

Ephesians 3:18

Imagine the most intense feelings of love you’ve ever felt—that time you felt your heart was about to explode because of your overwhelming affection for someone. Now imagine those feelings doubling. And doubling again. And again. Your heart would have a hard time handling such intensity, wouldn’t it?

Yet that intensity is only a tiny fraction of God’s love for each of His children. The dimensions of His love are incomprehensible, but we’re encouraged to try to understand it anyway. Paul prays for God to reveal it to us—the only way we can really even begin to grasp it. And even though we’ll never truly understand the magnitude of that love, it’s encouraging enough just to be told that it’s beyond our wildest imagination. Though we can’t measure it, we can experience it.

That’s important. It’s one thing to know of God’s love—even the youngest children in Sunday school have been told about it—but knowledge isn’t enough. A marriage certificate or an old love letter may testify to love, but a spouse still needs to be reminded of it and feel it often. A child may “know” a parent’s love, but knowing, without personal and affectionate embraces and conversations, doesn’t satisfy. Those who love want the objects of their love to experience it fully. Anything less is disappointing, to both the lover and the loved.

Accept the truth of God’s love, but do more than that. Ask to understand it, grasp it, feel it, experience it, and dive into its depths. God isn’t satisfied with our head knowledge, and neither are we. His love is meant to be fully encountered.

Lord, I know you don’t offer Your love to be experienced halfway. You want us to experience it as fully as we can. I believe that and ask for it. Help me understand—and feel—the enormity of Your love.