Wide Open

My heart is split wide open. And it seems to be a permanent condition.

How could it not be? I am constantly reminded of God's great love for me. When I start feeling sorry for myself, when I start to question if others love or care about me, when I question how long, when I wonder if my life will ever have a purpose He comes in and sweeps me off of my feet. And I am reminded that no matter the answer to any of those questions, the only answer that matters is that Jesus loves me. And that answer so overwhelms me everytime that my heart is left beating, pulsing His love, drowning me and all my doubts. What is left is an open, tender universe that spills out the excess of that love into my life. It colors everything in my world with light. And I am vulnerable but strong. I could not survive, no I couldn't exist without His love for me and without the knowledge that He loves me. Nothing else matters.

I am constantly surprised how so many people miss God's love for them. I am ever reminded. Every where I look I see evidence of it. I am a romantic at heart. I would venture to call myself an extreme romantic and for some reason am slightly ashamed of that. But I love a good love story. I love a story of desperation met with redemption. I love stories of focused pursuit. In fact I read those kinds of stories myself and get a little thrill out of them. But there is no bigger love story than that of God pursuing His creation.

I was doing one of my Bible studies this week and the question was asked, "What do you consider your life's verse?" I had to think about it for a minute, because obviously there are so many great verses in the Bible that I love. But then I remembered. I love the book of Hosea. I'm not sure that there are many who would say that being it is one of those old testament prophet books. But it has to hold one of my favorite love stories in the Bible. If you are unfamiliar with it, God told the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute called Gomer. She kept straying from the marriage, but Hosea would go out and seek her and bring her back. They even had children together. God intended for Hosea's life to be a picture of His relationship with His own people. We/I am the prostitute in God's story. I am easily distracted by temporary shallow things. I wander from home and try to fulfill my own needs. I place others before God and yet He comes after me as Hosea did, and carries me home. He never gives up. He is undeterred by my faithlessness, my lack of respect for myself or for Him. He loves me in all my filth. So then this verse sums it up for me;

Hosea 2:19-20¹⁹“ I will betroth you to Me forever;
      Yes, I will betroth you to Me
      In righteousness and justice,
      In lovingkindness and mercy;
      ²⁰I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness,
      And you shall know the LORD.

When I read that verse I see the I wills. And they are all God's. He will, He will, He will. The determination in our relationship is all on His side. It doesn't depend on me. There is passion and longing in so many I wills. He is determined. And that determination plays out in love and goodness. These are not angry or frustrated I wills. These are I wills founded in His desire for our best. These I wills bring good things into our lives; righteousness, justice, lovingkindness and mercy, faithfulness. And it ends in intimate relationship. You shall know the Lord.
This is my life verse. Because as much as I love Him I am fallible. As much as I love Him the motivation for that love was first prompted by His love for me. There is no way I can maintain a love with my Creator without His will to hold it in place. Without His desire to be with me, to love me, to pursue me, there would be no relationship, because I wouldn't be capable of maintaining it on my own. I am weak. I find such encouragement in knowing that He has determined that He will maintain that relationship with me and nothing can change that. I am thrilled that the outcome of His love is that I will truly know Him. That is all I want, to know Him.

God's love for us is unstoppable, unquenchable, miraculous. This is a love that knows every hair on our heads, that collects our tears in bottles, that has our names graven on His hands. This is a love that never quits, that follows us to the depths and back. A love passionately, desperately in love...with us! No other love story can equal. Every other story is a mere shadow of the real one.

And so I am back to being overwhelmed. I know that I am not worthy, I know that even if I were worthy I could never earn His love. And when I remember the depths from which I was raised and the heights to which He aspires to take me I am compelled to love the way I am loved, without reservation, without expectation and in total, wild abandonment with my heart wide open.
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