HOW DEEP CAN HIS LOVE REACH?

I'm writing for Five Minute Friday and today's word prompt is REACH.

You can spend a lifetime trying to reach someone and eventually realise you should stop, for your own sake.

You reach out again and again and again, and you wear yourself out wondering why you're being pushed away, shut out, ignored, invisible. 

You wonder what's wrong with you that makes the other person withdraw or unpredictably slam the door again - a door that was open yesterday but today, is firmly shut, for no obvious reason, and tomorrow, who knows?

The more you prise and poke and ask, the more the bolts go bang on the inside.

So you reach a few conclusions.

You realise that there is a limit to your ability to reach someone, and a limit to your responsibility to keep trying.   

We have to want to be reached and we often don't, if we're honest.

Many of us want to keep our real self hidden away, safe from pain and rejection, or mockery or control.

It seems that desire to hide is begun and cemented in childhood and adolescence.

We even get to say no to God on that one.  We could well end up in hell because of it - not because He wants that but because we've chosen it.

Today, if you will hear His voice:

"Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion.........."    Ps 95:7-8

If even Almighty God, Elohim, can't reach us, then is it possible that it's up to us to do the reaching out?

I mean, He's literally standing outside the darn door, but He's put the handle on our side.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.   Rev 3:20

It's up to us.

He's done all that needs doing.   His ability far exceeds mine.  He's paid for all our sin.  He's conquered death and disease and strongholds.  

But He was wounded for our transgressions,

He was bruised for our iniquities;

The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,

And by His stripes we are healed.  Isa 53:5

And He pursues us and lavishes grace on us and draws us with loving kindness, but why do we hold back? 

Fear, shame, pride, guilt, independence, idolatry, rebellion - many reasons.

He's the Father in the story of the prodigal son - looking, longing, hoping, waiting, interceding, whispering, convicting, ready.

And when we finally turn and decide He's worth the risk, He runs to reach us before we run out of energy to make it all the way home.   He doesn't just meet us halfway - He races towards us once we are ready to reach back.

He longs to redeem all that was lost and stolen and thrown away.   When we give Him a chance, He restores all that's been broken and damaged by our sin and the sin of others.

Bless the Lord, O my soul,

And forget not all His benefits:

Who forgives all your iniquities,

Who heals all your diseases,

Who redeems your life from destruction,

Who crowns you with loving-kindness and tender mercies,

Who satisfies your mouth with good things,

So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.  PS 103:2-5

But we have to reach out and put our hand on that door handle and surrender to the highest power in the universe - love personified, Jesus Himself.

In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.   1 John 4:9

But what if we've opened that door to Him and now He wants to reach into every nook and cranny of our hearts, into every room and cupboard and drawer and box - and redeem everything?  How do we respond when He pokes and prises and asks?   He's able to jackhammer those things open and sometimes He uses circumstances to expose them, but we can still hide and cover and withdraw.

To reach out is an act of the will - He's already done His part.   Now it's ours to reach back.

Can His love reach into the deepest,  darkest, scariest, most painful parts of our souls?  It absolutely can!    I can vouch for it.  

And it might absolutely terrify us but His love that floods in is absolutely worth the risk.

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Image from https://medium.com/christian-intellectual/the-parable-of-the-pit-947112fb5c00

And I pray) that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love,  may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height - to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory.......  Ephesians 3:17-21

This song spoke loudly to me when I first heard it, and it is once again convicting me, as He pokes around in another deeply-held box of painful memories.  

I been keepin' Jesus at a distance

So afraid to let Him get too close

To the two lives I've been livin'

As if He couldn't see them both

Close enough to feel the warmth of the fire

Far enough away for me to hide

But I'm tired of walkin' the wire

Between the darkness and the light

No more Jesus at a distance

No more pushin' You away

I don't wanna settle for the back road

Of some Sunday mornin' faith

So, I'm holdin' nothin' back now

'Cause there' nothin' You don't see

No more Jesus at a distance

Can change every part of me

Every part of me (ooh, ooh)

(Casting Crowns, Jesus At a Distance)