Being the Beloved - A Monthly Blog from CFDM Northwest
By Katrina Obata, Director of Spiritual Direction, CFDM
I’LL NEVER BE MORE LOVED
“I'll never be more loved than I am right now
Wasn't holding You up
So there's nothing I can do to let You down
It doesn't take a trophy to make You proud
I'll never be more loved than I am right now”
These are lyrics from a song called “Jireh.” Over the last couple of months, I hear this song on the radio at least twice a day. Whatever I’m doing it can bring me to a pause and I soak in the reality that “I’ll never be more loved than I am right now.” It’s so powerful and like a cool glass of water, my whole being is refreshed. And, like water, I need this over and over, both the reminder that I’m God’s beloved, and the refreshment it brings.
Many years ago, I had a thought while I was spending time with God in prayer. In my imagination, I was dead and with God in heaven, and there I realized that if I had any clue just how much God loved me while I was alive, that I would have lived differently. It made me sad and I asked God to PLEASE help me to know in my core now how much He loves me.
I consider myself extremely blessed to have been raised by two parents who loved me very well, loved each other (married over 57 years), and introduced me to a loving God. I recently found a letter my mother wrote me on my 18th birthday. In it she wrote, “Just remember, God is like your parents – ‘we love you’ no matter what.”
In spite of being raised in a foundation of love, I still find God’s love hard to fully comprehend. In a retreat a couple years ago with Christine Valter Paintner, she gave us a writing prompt. From the David Whyte poem, “Self,” we were to do a free write from the line “I want to know….” I wrote:
I want to know, how does God hold, in love, ALL people, just as they are? How does God look on us – on me – with constant Love and not want to turn away in disappointment, in sorrow, in disgust?
I want to know, how to love that way myself – but first – I want to know how can I receive that Love? How can I open myself and how can I accept that I really am Loved so fully, so immensely?
I want to know – is there something I could do for God to look away? God, you say nothing can separate us from your love, and I believe. I do. So, why then am I asking the question? Why then? What IS it that I want to know?
I want to know, how can something so amazing be real?
In prayer, about a week later, I had some insight to how He loves the way He does. To remind myself, this is part of what I wrote down:
God is Love, nothing changes or diminishes that. If/when God gives, out of love (for He can give no other way) and the love is not returned, accepted, or appreciated – God is not diminished AND His love toward the other who rejected Him is not diminished! God is not a pouter, hater, resenter; He does not shut down His love – His love continues because HE continues. He is not moved or diminished in anyway. He stays. He stays.
This inspires me to ask, God, can I be that way? Can I love without concern for how, or if, that love will be received? God’s perfect love is beyond what I can give in my power or by my strength, but by his Spirit all things are possible!
Paul knew that God’s love was difficult to grasp, that it surpasses knowledge – but we can be filled with it! I’m thankful for Paul’s prayer,
“…that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know 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 3:17b-19
Whether I perceive it or not, “I’ll never be more loved than I am right now.”
(lyrics from Jireh, by Elevation Music & Mavrick City Music)
What books, media, activities are nurturing your heart, soul, mind, strength in this season as we are loving God and our neighbor as ourselves? Post in the comments below or hop on over to our Facebook page and share with one another.