the love of God

November 16, 2010

Wow, it's definitely been awhile since I've blogged. Grad school is a lot more hectic than I thought it'd be. But it's a good hectic, and though my days are filled with a multitude of little tasks, I am able to find joy in the midst of doing it all because at the heart of it, I like what I do and I'm so grateful I've been given the opportunity to pursue what I like. :) God's been good and I've been learning to give thanks and find joy in the midst of everything: in good times when God's providence is crystal clear and also in those times when I am just at a loss as to why exactly God has me where I am.

There are way too many thoughts and musings going on in my head, but two major issues stick out to me: knowing the love of God and wanting the best (in terms of spirituality). In the last few days, I've realized that, at least for me, these two issues relate in such a way as to show me where it is that God wants me to grow.

However, I'm just going to be talking about loving God, knowing the love of God-

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸ may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:17b-19)

I read this chapter the other day; the bolded section stood out to me. To know the love of God. So often, we start emphasizing way too much the acquiring of knowledge, of Biblical knowledge, of knowledge about God's deity, the way the Bible was written, the different theological viewpoints of the endtimes, the complexities of grace and judgment, etc. These are all wonderful! I like reading and knowing about these things. But I've started to notice that the danger of a pursuit after these things is that it becomes merely a pursuit of knowledge, and no longer a pursuit of God. We can have all that knowledge and even more, and have it not even affect our lives; we could still be joylessly going through everyday, complaining about that person, our jobs, our financial situations, our parents, the people we serve at church, etc. We can know everything the Bible says, and yet be proud, easily irritated and annoyed, holier-than-thou people who have no love for the ones around us. But this is so VERY different from the life God has called us to and has so readily presented to us to take upon. I've read quite a few number of accounts of people who went to seminary, or grew up in a Christian home, pursued all that 'holy' knowledge, and in the end, became atheists or anti-Christian. It saddens me greatly. And yet it is not surprising that once again, Satan can turn even what may seem to be a most holy pursuit into something that drives us away from God.

Another thought. We get content with where we are. We think "I've read enough of the Bible, I go to church every Friday and Sunday, I pray, I qt, I serve, I'm gooooood." hahaha I definitely fall into that at times. Knowing God starts becoming just another task to be crossed off from my to-do list everyday. "I've qted, I've read x-# of chapters, I've prayed. I must be good in God's book today" And we become content with where we are, not to mention how dangerously close we are to falling into a work-centric Christianity if we think we're 'good' after doing a certain number of hours of praying/reading. But the love of God surpasses all knowledge. That means, there's no way we could ever know this great love of God to the point of grasping it within our little brains. And so Paul's prayer- that we may (somehow) have the power to grasp this GREAT GREAT love of Christ, this great love that surpasses everything. We can understand, grasp but a tidbit of it and we are subsequently amazed and awed that such a God is our God and such a love is poured out on us. There's no end to knowing or experiencing His love. There's never a point in time when we can say "I've known all of God's love, I've grasped it, I "got" it" like we could say about some math concept. No, God's love is wide, long, high, and deep, and that is the excitement of it all, that we who are finite can find satisfaction and joy in the pursuit of experiencing and worshiping and intimately knowing the infinite love of God.

And so how could we ever be content with where we are? Because I'm a young adult, and young adults looooove the topic of dating, I will use this silly but appropriate example. When people are dating, courting, etc., in those beginning days, the two want more: more time spent together, more understanding of each other, more talking (stalking? hehe), more knowledge of each other, more more more. To the point of what? the goal of courting/dating=marriage, to know that person through and through, to love that person through and through. And so we are and should be the same in our walk with God (except God is infinite, and people are finite and boring after awhile, jk!). To have this neverending desiring to know more of God (not just about God), to spend more time with him, to know and experience more of his love, to give and take more of Him, more more more! To the point of what? "to be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." To be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

That sounds amazing to me. Is this not the life God offers us? To be filled with the fullness of God would look so very different from the depressing, grumbling-filled, joyless lives that we so often settle for because though we know in our head God has so much more for us, we don't actually believe it in our heart. What we know is but textbook knowledge, useful in getting us that A on our spiritual report card that we give to ourselves and others. But it is so much more than that! These are promises to us, very real promises that offer us so much more than we can imagine. The fullness of God within me. Could you imagine a world where everyone was filled to the measure of ALL the FULLNESS of GOD? I long for that. I long to have everything of God fill me up; to have me be emptied of everything that I already have, to see that what I already have in God is really but a small glimpse of the infinite treasure that God is offering to me to take up on.

I've realized that one of the hardest things for me about being in a new environment is this longing to be known. To be known, to be on the inside, not the 'new person', not to feel like who I am is being tested and put on display before others so that they may place me in a box in their minds of whom I seem to be. But to be known for who I really am, to be trusted and to not have to feel like I have to pass so many tests for so long before I can be fully trusted to be what I've known myself to be all along.

And so this verse encourages me, because the One who matters already knows me. I'm already known, and even beyond that, I am already loved with a love so great that I could never pursue it to its end, but that beckons me to continue pursuing this great love and this great God because there's more of Him to fill me, and more of me to be emptied. And so instead of a pursuit of being known by others, and being filled by people's words and thoughts and ideas about me, and being weighed down by all that and the accompanying pressures, I am left free to pursue the One who already knows me, who already loves me, and whose love is to be desired to greater extents because He would never stop giving (if we would but never cease to ask), and to be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. To have all the fullness of life within us as He had intended it to be.