Love Abounds

I am undone. I have been thinking about my life a bit lately and can hardly come to terms with it. In the past year alone I have experienced so much. I have walked the streets that Mother Theresa walked. I have stood atop a mountain surrounded by the Himalayas. I have swam with turtles in the ocean in Hawaii. I have sat atop an elephant journeying through forests in Nepal. I spent Christmas day on a sleeper train in India. Now, I live in the great land of New Zealand where I spend my days enjoying the beauty all around me through the interactions I have with others and the landscape before me that calls me to venture into it. What is this life that I am living? It is more than I could have ever dreamed of. But you know what, all of this pales in comparison to the relationship that I have found in the one whom created me.

He has been with me all the while. He stands at my side, He hems me in behind and before me, and He lays His hand upon me.

Psalm 139:13-14 “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

I am just beginning to understand what this means. What does it mean to be formed by the creator of the universe, the one who spoke the stars into existence? What does is mean to be in relationship with a God that is the very definition of love? What does it mean to hear from and speak to the one that holds the stars in sky? It is the mysteries of God that overwhelm me, yet draw me ever closer to Him.

Some days are harder than others. Some days it is a struggle to get through the day. There are days that I don’t feel His love, or His presence. There are days I struggle to be me and don’t feel like I am the person God created me to be. The beauty in this though is that He is no further from me in these moments. His love knows no bounds. Death could not stop it, the power of hell could not subdue it so what makes me think that the posture of my heart could stand between me and the love He is so desiring to pour out on me.

This is why I came to New Zealand. I came here that I might be trained and equipped to lead others into the fullness of the Father’s love, the love that stretches across the expanse of the heavens and reaches down to the hearts of you and me.

I am simply at the beginning of this great venture, this journey into the heart of God. Students have arrived and I don’t feel any more equipped to lead them to this place seeing as I am just beginning to experience this myself. But, God is good and He has promised me that he will never leave me or forsake me, and that is what I put my hope and trust in.

Psalm 42:2 “My soul thirsts for you, for the LIVING God. When shall I come and appear before God.”

The gang. 

The mountains declare His glory, they do! 

  

What, I get to be here?