A reckless leap across a chasm into the unknown, a tailspin into bliss where the only place I can land is in HIS arms kind of love.
I want this love for my Savior. God has it for me and the proof of that love hung on a cross in torn and hanging flesh, a crown of thorns upon His glorious head. In the beautiful and destroyed form of a man, love took its last breath and since then, we've all been gasping for it.
I want to love Jesus in such an involuntary way that it comes as naturally as breathing. Maybe that's what Heaven is all about. Involuntary surrender to a love so incredibly cleansing and fulfilling, that you just take deep, measured breaths of the stuff and never get full of it. The people in your path, love. Instant love. The people in your peripheral, boom, love again. Never a reason not to, never a way out of it, not the first doubt about how or why. Every breath, a suspended moment of gratitude, greater than the one before. Can you imagine? No strife. No judgement. Not a word of condemnation uttered. Hard to even comprehend on an Earth so hell bent on getting it's own way. No pun intended. What we experience here is like struggling to breathe, drowning in "stuff" and just when you break the surface to catch a breath, someone else tries to push you back under. Most of the time they don't mean to, but they are so panicked over their own "stuff" that they don't even realize they are holding your head under. I already want to go back to that place up there, my chest feels heavy thinking about here.
This is when I need that tailspin the most. When I feel like I can't breathe from the effort of trying to get my head above water. Right now, what I need most is that involuntary love that sends me headlong towards Jesus and the only thing I can do is crash into Him and hold on for dear life. Again, no pun intended. The real truth, the one I should rejoice in, is that I need that all of the time. I am really good at convincing myself that I've got this though. Pppsshhhaww, no big deal. This life stuff, it's a cake walk. Put our burdens on Jesus and just float along. You can and you will, so long as you don't wrench it back from Him and sure, you'll find me on my knees, praying for and about whatever thing I have convinced myself I need. You'll hear me flood praises on High for the countless blessings in my life. You'll see me serving and helping those around me, continually seeking the moment when I've got it just right. Some days, you can even find me teaching others to lean into Jesus with everything they've got and pouring words straight from the well of the Holy Spirit right into their lives. But where I struggle is in all of those in-betweens, that's when I want to love Him most and that is when it is the hardest. That's where I want to grow, I want to learn how to breathe again. I want to breathe Him.
It is easy to adore Christ when you are doing the things He wants you to do. It's hard to gush and cherish Him when you have a puking kid, bills to pay and people unknowingly pushing your head back under their drowning point. And in the mundane, I fall asleep. I forget about mustard seeds and mountains, blind men and lepers. I forget to look for the myriad of miracles in the every day and therefore, forget to breathe the very life of the one who gave all for me. What's beautiful about this, what's amazing about Christ is that He loves me anyways. Right in the middle of my little mess, He's there beaming at me when all I can say is, "I suck" and mean it. He's there, piggy-backing me to the washing machine when I am sore at my kids and don't feel like messing with one more dirty sock. At night, while I am tearfully and silently lamenting the empty spot next to me, He is there wondering when His love will be enough, but tucking me in anyways, with a sweet prayer of mercy to our Father. Jesus sees me and doesn't see a single mom with messy kids, a car that's well past needing serviced and an account balance that would make most cringe. He sees me and its all love, it is all mercy. It is nothing short of Glorious. My Savior sees me serving when the most noble thing I have done all day is to remind my kids to brush their teeth.
My mundane is God's miracle. My ordinary is His supernatural. My tedious, task-oriented day, is his harvest work. Let me see that, let me embrace that. Let me guard my heart and all that flows from it with this one, gentle reminder; Grace is my portion. Mercy is my portion. Love is pursuing me, consuming me, jealous for me and engulfing me right now. Jesus Christ bought and secured my future and there's no devil in hell that will keep me from it. Okay, so maybe not so gentle, but with the authority of Christ in me, I choose God's promises. I choose reckless love, wild love and to recognize the extraordinary in the ordinary. I choose this life, running in all abandon towards Christ. And you know what? He calls me chosen. God sees me and in spite of myself, he says I'm precious, adored, treasured and refuses to let me settle for anything short of that. So yeah, I am going to love this life, voluntarily, until the day God calls me home and I take that first fulfilling breath of victory, In Jesus.
Hallelujah.
The greatest of these, is love.
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