Day Two, So Hard to Explain

How do you explain the color blue to someone who cannot see? How do you explain the sound waves make against the shore to someone who has never even seen the ocean? How do you explain the forest to an Eskimo or your house to a stranger? Shy of literary genius, these tasks are so very hard to accomplish. I mean we can give a general description and even draw or share a picture but nothing can compare to the experience of these things. Even a recording of the ocean is not the same as having your feet on the wet shore while the endless cold water sends waves chasing one another to your toes. Try as we may but our words will always fall short of the thing we wish to express. That is how if feel when it comes to explaining God's love. Utterly at a loss of words!

If I had counted how many times I have already pressed the delete button just trying to get this far I think you may have some idea with just how much I struggle to convey my thoughts about this very subject.

Where do you begin telling others of a love so complete, a love so full, a love so real and so unfailing, when they have never even imagined such a thing. To know this love, is to know how forgiveness begins and ends. To feel this love is to be full to overflowing. To breathe in this love is to know deep peace and unshakable joy. To taste this love is to hunger for nothing less. To touch this love is to be comforted by the biggest warm embrace. To see this love is unforgettable. To recognize this love it is simply life changing. I cannot do God's love justice. I cannot ever express fully what His love is. I can't even tell you what it is to me because it is so much... EVERYTHING that I would fail it's EVERYTHINGNESS.

A love that sends The God's Son to Earth to walk along side broken men and women, to die for them, to fight the power of death for them and then to be raised again to pray for them day in and day out until we meet Him.

To put it more personal, God sent Jesus (and Jesus willingly obeyed) to this world. The same world you and I struggle through each day, only years ago when there wasn't even so many modern conveniences like Netflix and Pizza Delivery to look forward to. Then when Jesus face trials and temptation He first thought of The Father who sent Him, declined and walked away so that He could complete the mission set before Him. The Father's heart was with us, the lost, the hopeless, the very least and Jesus passionately pursued The Father's heart over even His own comfort and wellbeing. Jesus laid down His life for me, for us. But not for me because I am good, but His life paid the price of my sins. His life was required as a sacrifice to fulfill the law which required perfect blood for sinful people. Nothing more perfect was ever offered to God and nothing ever will match what was done the day Jesus' blood shed for us.  This love is overwhelming to think about, a love that would die for me, y'all FOR ME????? 

At the end of the day it does sound completely crazy. It sounds like a great way to "cope" with life and to get ya by. But one thing remains, The Love. The Love is real. Every page of The Bible is drenched in His Holy Love and every part of my being has experienced it first hand. I cannot force myself to simply cope with this life, no matter what stories I have heard or believed, I just don't have it in me. But something happened when I came face to face with This LOVE, so overwhelming to ever go back and too real to ever deny its validity. No person would ever want to point to some man who lived a couple thousand years ago, to explain why their life is so ever changed, never to be the same and why they are so completely fulfilled and LOVED, if it wasn't so dang true.

Friends, I find myself beating my brain for the right words to describe this LOVE. I feel sad that some will read this and still may never know it. I long so badly to stuff you inside of my life so that you could see it so plainly like I do now...

"Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance."

1 Cor 13:4-7 NLT

So I end with a prayer because that is all I have left to give you.

Dear Heavenly Father,
You are good. You are faithful and Your LOVE is perfect. Thank you for deeply loving me, the likes of which I only know in part but feel in whole. Thank you for loving those reading this. Even when they can't fathom such real love, even when it feels like You have failed them and even when their hearts have been filled with hurt and pain, You have loved them. I pray that in this very moment whoever is reading this will open their heart to your love. I pray that they will think of Your Son Jesus and His love for You and for His obedience even unto death to pay for our wrongdoings. I pray for whoever is struggling to understand it all, for the one who still isn't convinced that this love could be so true, I ask Lord that You will soften their heart and give them the greatest gift of all, Your LOVE. Forgive us for our sins against You and for rejecting your Love for so long. Teach us today of your love and let us grow more and more closer to you through it. 
Amen.