Sometimes,
life just sucks the life out of us. We may be bursting with feelings of Love
and Adventure one day and scattered in pieces on the floor the next day, like
the fragments of a shriveled balloon. Yet while our feelings may change, the truth
doesn’t:
Love endures.
The start of a new year is often bursting with hope and
optimism. Mine was no exception. But as the final strains of “Auld Lang Syne”
die out, we’re left with a New Year’s hangover that has nothing to do with the
amount of alcohol we did or didn’t consume.
- Taxes must be paid
- Insurance must be renewed
- Laundry awaits
- School break draws to a close
- The needs of the people you care about tower around you like the Himalayas
· What
will I do after school?
· What
jobs or colleges should I apply to?
· What
should I do this summer?
· Where
shall I move?
· Who
should I marry?
· How can I afford X?
Oh, and if you’re a parent, the questions get even more
complicated and exciting. It seems as though the more people we care about, the
more opportunities we have to worry.
As it happens, I also have a lot of unknowns coming into this
year. I love my college, my job, and my hometown, but I’m graduating this
summer and the neon words “What next?” have been flashing over my forehead for
a few months now. And I’m ready for a change. Maybe even a drastic change.
But when the questions of the unknown pound all
around us and we only focus on everything we don’t know, all we can hear is
noise, noise, noise, noise, NOISE!
No wonder the Grinch hated Christmas if noise was all he
could hear.
That’s where I was yesterday. Oh yes, happy new year to
me—a year with a ton of unknowns that are all clamoring for instant decisions.
But then, a still, small voice whispers. . .
“He will quiet you by his love.”
What was that?
I flip through my Bible. Weren’t those words in Habakkuk?
Haggai? Nope, Zephaniah. I like how the New Living Translation puts it:
“With his love, he will calm all your fears.” (Zephaniah
3:17)
With his love, he will calm all your fears.
His Love. Hmm. I take a deep breath, and the voices in my
head gradually quiet down.
Love is a funny thing. Some days we feel it and some days
we don’t, but it’s more than a feeling.
It’s a fact.
God spoke these words through a guy named Paul:
“Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does
it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted,
or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? . . . No,
despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who
loved us.
‘And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us
from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our
fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can
separate us from God’s love.
‘No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed,
nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God
that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:35-39, NLT; bold mine)
After bringing this passage to my attention yesterday,
the speaker at my church added, “God’s love is like air. You can’t get away
from it.”
Oh.
A few weeks ago, I was visiting my brother and his family. As I was journalling on my bed one Saturday evening, my two-year-old niece decided that she wanted to join me. Seeing me with an open book, she heaved my green and yellow Life Recovery Bible onto her lap. Holding it upside-down, she started flipping through the pages and "reading" the Bible me:
"God will give me some presents," she read.
She turned a page.
"God. God. God--loves me."
She turned another page.
"God loves me."
She turned another page.
"A prayer. More: God loves me."
We may not feel the Love, but every day, every breath, and every page of Scripture points to this inescapable truth: God loves me.
It took a two-year-old to teach me that.
I had been listening to the noise of the unknowns and starting to wonder where the Love went.
Love goes nowhere. We don’t have to feel it for it to
exist. It is a thing that surrounds us and helps us to draw each breath because
it is the very air we breathe.
So when the unknowns scream for attention and make the future
look like Mt. Doom, our job is to focus on what we know.
We know that God knows the future.
We know that God has good plans for us. (Jer. 29:11)
We know that nothing can separate us from Love.
With our feet firmly fixed on Love, we can hang up on the
noise before cheerfully saying, like Walter Mitty, “I can’t really talk right now. I’m
on my way to a volcano!”
Then we pedal forward and do the next thing.
Even Mt. Doom can be an Adventure when we remember the
truth that Love will always surround us. This is the Life that Love offers.
Here's a clip from one of my all-time favorite movies, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty:
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