The greatest thing you'll ever learn/ Is just to love/And be loved in return

"He will rip through every obstacle in your life if you put a demand on His passion. You have no idea how much He loves you."

                                                                             - Tommy Tenney -

Writing this, it suddenly occurs to me that I really do have trouble comprehending a love so vast. If I fully understood it, I think it would resolve a lot of my doubts, fears and anxieties and I would probably sleep a lot better at night! I ask what feels like a lot of God in my prayers, but to be honest I hold back a lot because a part of me feels like I have no right to ask for more. But why should I feel like that in the presence of a God who loves me so much that He gave His only begotten son for me? Who loves me so much that He forgives me everything, and is endlessly patient in the face of my innumerable mistakes and frailties? Who keeps on speaking to me, trying to get me to hear His words of love and to tell me what He wants for me even when I am so deafened by the voices in my own head that I usually can't get anywhere close to the silence I need to hear His still, small voice?

So why don't I ask for everything? God would give it to me, He really would, if I would only ask and truly trust and believe I would get it. Matthew 7:7-11 says:

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!"

Now I really don't think that's in the Bible for fun. God's word means something; it means everything. and God tells us, if we ask, we shall receive. But we have to ask with our whole hearts. If I close my heart, or a part of it, to God, then I cut myself off from His blessings. If I won't open the door to God, how can He come in? God doesn't force His way in - He waits to be invited, willingly. If I am resisting God, because I can't fully trust Him, then I am also resisting the good He is trying to work in my life. 

God doesn't guarantee a world or a life free from pain or suffering, or even from pettiness and meanness. All that is part of the fallen world we live in, and the pain we choose to inflict on each other is a casualty of free will - which is not to say that free will is a bad thing. It just means that we have a responsibility, not only to ourselves but to one another. What God does promise is that He will be with us, right beside us, always, no matter what. You might still fall off your bicycle, but your heavenly Father will always be there to help you up, wipe away your tears, and cry with you, because your pain is His pain. 

So, I am trying to learn to call on His passion. Perfect love casts out fear, and His love is perfect. I feel fear because I don't allow myself to feel His love, because I don't truly believe I am worthy of being loved like that, or maybe even at all. But the point of God's love is there is no need to be worthy of it. We don't have to do anything to deserve it. It is not contingent on us. The only reason we are here at all is because God loves, so all we have to do is just be. Just be, and learn to be loved. I might never be able to fully grasp the breadth and depth of God's love, but I can try to learn to trust it, and accept it. Maybe then I'll get a little closer to living the life God wants for me, which must by definition be far more wonderful than anything I could possibly imagine for myself because it has come from a place of pure love. 

All I have to do is just be, and learn to be loved. The peace of the Lord be with you.