Tuesday 20 September 2016

Your love is.... Fierce?



Before I call
Before I ever cry
You answer me
From where the thunder hides
I can't outrun
This heart I'm tethered to
When every step
I collide with You

Like a tidal wave
Crashing over me
Rushing in to meet me here
Your love is fierce
Like a hurricane
That I can't escape
Tearing through the atmosphere
Your love is fierce

You cannot fail
The only thing I've found
Is through it all
You never let me down
You don't hold back
Relentless in pursuit
At every turn
I come face to face with You

You surround me
You chase me down
You seek me out
How can I be lost
When You have called me found
You chase me down
You seek…

(lyrics from 'Fierce' by Jesus Culture)


You know, we often think about God's love being very lovey-dovey and peaceful and patient and kind. He loves us so much, we have this 'I'm loved' feeling in our hearts, everything goes wonderfully. Right? 

Right. His love is a patient and kind love.

But it's also a fierce love. 

This is something I've been musing on recently - some of the different aspects of his love. How it's peaceful and fierce, relentless and patient, in pursuit of us and kind, all at the same time. 

Psalm 139:7-10 sums it up so beautifully when it eloquently tells us where we can go to hide from
God.

Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.

The thing is - we cannot hide from God. His love pursues us and fiercely surrounds us no matter where we go! Jonah discovered that when he didn't want to go to Nineveh. God pursued him and caught him and he found he could not hide from God.

That's why I love the lyrics in 'Fierce' by Jesus Culture that I put above. There are a couple of lines in it that I especially love: 

I can't outrun // this heart I'm tethered to /// when every step // I collide with You

We can't outrun him because we're tethered to him! Funny image, isn't it. But it's so true. God tells us in his Word that he has called us right from the start. We are his. 

Relentless in pursuit // at every turn // I come face to face with You

The thing about the idea of God's love being fierce is that you can't focus completely on that. God is a God of love, but his love is all-encompassing and has so many amazing (and often contradictory!) qualities about it that it's not helpful for us to focus on one. 

Contradictory qualities? 

Yep. His love is patient and kind (2 Peter 3:9) but it's also fierce and pursues us relentlessly. 

Us humans can't grasp the fact that God's love can be more than one thing. It takes a lot of getting-our-heads-around! 

So we can't take it to extremes. We can't be like, well, his love is fierce. That means I can run and run and run from him and do my own thing and he'll eventually catch up with me and it will all be cool and I'll go to Heaven when I die. But in the meantime, I'll do what I like, thank you very much!

Ummmm what?! 

His love is also patient and kind. God is a gentleman. He has given us free will to choose whether to follow him or not. Yes he pursues us, but the choice of whether to turn around and jump into his arms or to keep running is ours alone! 

May you have a blessed day :)

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10 comments:

  1. God's love is amazing.

    Thanks for the message! I hope you have a blessed day too! :)

    With love and all joy,
    Allie D.
    www.alliesblogdesigns.blogspot.com
    www.friendlovesatalltimes.blogspot.com
    www.sincerelyallied.blogspot.com
    www.spreadingmyjoy.blogspot.com

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  2. Very true. In terms of 'contradictory' qualities, one example (which I got from Shane C) is an elephant. If a whole lot of blind people were standing around an elephant and each holding onto one part of it, one would say the elephant was a trunk, one would say it was a leg, one would say it was a tusk, and so on. None of them are wrong, they just can't see the whole picture. (They can't see at all, but never mind that :P)

    I love the way that you are not afraid to take a stand on the truth of the gospel (no matter whether it's a comfortable truth or not), and how you are completely dedicated to living that out, turning around and jumping into God's arms.

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    1. I love that example! It actually comes from a poem! Did you know that? :) Here's the poem. http://www.noogenesis.com/pineapple/blind_men_elephant.html

      Why, thank you. That made my day. :) God bless yours.

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    2. No, I hadn't read the poem before - thanks for the link. :)

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  3. God's love is truly amazing. ♥ Thanks for sharing, Bonnie!

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  4. That's interesting! I enjoyed this post. I've been thinking about the different aspects of God's love too. He loves us so much, He will go to great lengths to assure us of that. Like you said though, it's hard for us to understand His perfect love, when all we have to compare it to is our weak, and often selfish, love (which then isn't true love, anyway).. There's so much to learn!

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for your comment, Jessica! So true. It is hard to understand his love when it's only our own fallable love we have to compare it to! But then.... we were never told we have to figure out all its nuances. We have all of eternity to understand it better! :)

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