The Dimensions of Love  Ephesians 3.16-19

The LORD has been working on my heart in the struggle to love certain ones in my life in the face of feeling hurt and the stress of all that has happened in our family.

The LORD brought me to Ephesians 3:16-19, AGAIN, as the defining and inspiring vision to reach for when I am worn out of love.  And that is to be immersed in the lengths, breadths, heights and depths of His love, and to be inspired to love others with that love, the love He loves me with so faithfully, and the love with which He loves each one of us so faithfully.

“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.  And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and log and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

Ephesians 3:16-19  NIV

He loves us with the lengths and breadths and heights and depths of His love:

A love that loves the world.
A love that sees potential and joys to unlock its treasures.
A love that loves me, knowing the dust I am made of, the reality of weakness and the reality of beauty.
A love that will not let me go.
A love that teaches me to not let other people go, seeing the dust they are made of, the reality of weakness and the reality of beauty.
A tenacious love that joys to find ways to bless.

When frustrated it is very powerful to ask:  What would this love say or do in response to this moment of testing?

“God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…”  John 3:16

O LORD empower us to so love the people in our lives and in our world, each in such need of this unfathomable love…

O may we live in the heights and depths, the length and the breadths of this love.

Power Over the Pit

I cried out to the LORD when I was triggered by intense experiences, which brought me to the slippery slope of self-judgment.
He heard my voice, as I claimed Psalm 40:1-3.
“I waited patiently for the LORD;
And He inclined to me, and heard my cry.
He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay;
And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.
And He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God;
Many will see and fear, and I will trust in the LORD.”

Prayer based on Psalm 40:1-3

I have waited for you LORD, over these years.
And You have consistently heard my prayer.
You brought me up out of a trapped condition that I could not free myself from.
You set my feet upon a rock of stability, and gave me a place to stand.
You put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God, the One who is Mighty
on our behalf and on behalf of each one of our spiritual family.

I wait for you now, LORD.
I know you hear me.
You understand the pit of shame and fear I fall into.
I cannot free myself, it’s wall are slick and I have no place to stand in this slippery mud.
But again you free me.  You set my feet on the stability and strength of Christ.
In him I have a place to stand.  I stand in his innocence.
I stand with a new song in my mouth,
a song that praises Your Love and Strength and Power in my life
and in the lives of all Your Children throughout this world.