Experiencing God's Presence #210

His unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth.

Psalm 103:11

Few people have experienced relentless love in human relationships. Even those who have experienced it realize that human love often springs from mixed motives or unhealthy emotional needs. But pure, selfless, extravagant, passionate, unbending love is hard to comprehend. We’ve seen few, if any, examples of it.

So when we’re told about God’s unfailing love—and how high and deep and wide it is—we often nod our heads in agreement while our hearts remain untouched. It isn’t that we don’t believe it. We just don’t feel it. It becomes an intellectual solution for us rather than a warm embrace. Meanwhile, the God whose love is bigger than we can imagine looks for hearts that can receive Him.

How can the power of God’s love make the journey from our heads to our hearts? Not by better reasoning and analysis, nor by repetition of the verses that describe it, nor by more explanations and understanding. Mental processes do little for the heart; they further establish things in our minds. The only way we can know this kind of love is through spiritual and emotional processes, through experience, through the kind of faith that can accept truths the mind can’t understand. And the only way for any of these things to happen is not by self-effort but by receiving them from God.

Step one in almost everything in the Christian life is to ask for it. Religion gives us step-by-step instructions, but in a relationship, we experience life and all its blessings by simply receiving. Don’t strive to understand God’s love; accept it. Ask for a greater revelation of it. Embrace it as true even if your mind objects. According to God’s Word, His love will always be greater than we can understand.

Lord, I don’t understand Your love, but I know it’s true. I know I’m deeply loved beyond my comprehension. I choose to soak in it. As I do, please let it become more and more real to me.

From the book