Deeper

Deeper

I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. (Eph. 3:16-19)

Pipin Ferreras wants to go deep – deeper than any person has ever gone before. You and I are probably content with 10 or 20 feet of water. Certain risk-takers may descend 40, maybe 50 feet. But not Pipin. This legendary Cuban diver has descended into 531 feet of ocean water, armed with nothing but flippers, a wet suit, a strong resolve, and one breath of air. His round trip lasted three minutes and twelve seconds. To prepare for such a dive, he loads his lungs with 8.2 liters of air – nearly twice the capacity of a normal human being – inhaling and exhaling for several minutes, his windpipe sounding like a bicycle pump. He then wraps his knees around the crossbar of an aluminum sled that lowers him to the sea bottom. No free diver has gone farther. But still, he wants more. Though he's acquainted with water pressures that tested World War II submarines, it's not enough. The mystery of the deep calls him. He wants to go deeper.

Would you be interested in going deeper? Not a descent into ocean waters, but into the limitless love of God. “May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.” (Eph. 3:17-19) When Paul wants to describe the love of God, he can't avoid the word “deep.” Dig "deep into the soil of God's marvelous love." (v. 17) Discover "how deep his love really is." (v. 18)

Envision Pipin deep beneath the ocean’s surface. Having plunged the equivalent of five stories, where can he turn and not see water? To the right, to the left, beneath him, above him – the common consistency of his world is water. Water defines his dives, dictates his direction, liberates him, and limits him. His world is water. Can a person go equally deep into God's love? Sinking so deep that he or she sees nothing else? David Brainerd, the eighteenth-century missionary to the American Indians, would say so. He journaled: “I withdrew to my usual place of retirement, in great tranquility. I knew only to breathe out my desire for a perfect conformity to Him in all things. God was so precious that the world with all its enjoyments seemed infinitely vile. I had no more desire for the favor of men than for pebbles. At noon I had the most ardent longings after God which I ever felt in my life. In my secret retirement, I could do nothing but tell my dear Lord in a sweet calmness that He knew I desired nothing but Him, nothing but holiness, that He had given me these desires and He only could give the thing desired. I never seemed to be so unhinged from myself, and to be so wholly devoted to God. My heart was swallowed up in God most of the day.”

For anyone desiring a descent into that kind of love, Scripture offers us an anchor. Grab hold of this verse and let it lower you down: "God is love." (1 John 4:16) One word into the passage reveals the supreme surprise of God's love – that it has nothing to do with you. Others love you because of you – your dimples; your good looks; your rhetoric. Some people love you because of you. But not God. He loves you because he’s God. He loves you because he decides to. Self-generated, uncaused, and spontaneous, his constant-level love depends on his choice to give it. "The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you." (Deut. 7:7-8)

You don't influence God's love. For instance, you can't impact the “treeness” of a tree, or the “skyness” of the sky, or the “rockiness” of a rock. Nor can you affect the love of God. If you could, John would have used more ink: "God is occasional love," or "sporadic love," or "fair-weather love." If your actions altered his devotion, then God would not be love – he’d be human, because that’s human love. And we’ve all had enough of human love from time to time, haven't we? Enough guys wooing you with Elvis-impersonator sincerity. Enough tabloids telling you that true love is just a diet away. Enough helium-filled expectations of bosses and parents and children. Enough mornings smelling like the mistakes you made while searching for love the night before.

Don't we need a fountain of love that won't run dry? Well, you'll find one on a stone-cropped hill outside Jerusalem's walls where Jesus hangs, cross-nailed and thorn-crowned. When you feel unloved, go to that spot. Meditate long and hard on heaven's love for you. Both eyes beaten shut, shoulders as raw as ground beef, lips bloody and split. Fists of hair yanked from his beard. Gasps of air escaping his lungs. As you peer into the crimsoned face of heaven's only Son, remember this: "God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners." (Rom. 5:8) Don't trust other yardsticks, although we often do. Because the sight of the healthy or successful prompts us to conclude, “God must really love her. She's so blessed with health, money, good looks, and skill.” Or, we gravitate to the other extreme. Lonely and frail in the hospital bed, we deduce, “God doesn’t love me. How could he? Just look at me.”

Success signals God's love no more than struggles indicate the lack of it. The definitive, God-sanctioned gauge is not a good day or a bad break, but the dying hours of his Son. So, consider them often. Let the gap between trips to the cross diminish daily. Discover what Brainerd meant when he said, "My heart was swallowed up in God most of the day." Accept this invitation from your Savior: "Abide in My love." (John 15:9)

When you abide somewhere, you live there. You grow familiar with the surroundings. You don't pull into the driveway and ask, "Where’s the garage?" Or, you don't consult the blueprint to find the kitchen. To abide is to be at home. To abide in Christ's love is to make his love your home – not a roadside park you occasionally visit, but your preferred dwelling. You rest in him. Eat in him. When thunder claps, you step beneath his roof. His walls secure you from the winds. His fireplace warms you from the winters of life. As John urged, "We take up permanent residence in a life of love." (1 John 4:16) You abandon the old house of false love, and move into his home of real love.

But adapting to this new home can take some time. The first few nights in a new home and you can wake up and walk into a wall. I did. Climbed out of bed to get a glass of water, turned left, and flattened my nose. The dimensions of the room were different. The dimensions of God's love are different, too. You've lived a life in a house of imperfect love. As a result, you think God is going to cut you just like your coach did, or abandon you as your father did, or judge you as false religion did, or curse you as your friend did. He won't. But it takes time to be convinced. For that reason, abide in him. Hang on to Christ the same way a branch clutches to the vine.

According to Jesus, the branch models his definition of “abiding.” "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me." (John 15:4) Does a branch ever release the vine? Only at the risk of death. Does the branch ever stop eating? Nope. It receives nutrients twenty-four hours a day. Then would you say the branch is vine-dependent? I would. So, how well do you pass the vine test? Do you ever release yourself from Christ's love? Go unnourished? Do you ever stop drinking from his reservoir? Do so and you’ll be at the peril of a roundworm’s existence.

By sealing itself off against the world, the roundworm can endure extended seasons of drought. It essentially shuts down all of its systems. Releasing water until it's as dry as a cotton ball, the roundworm enters a state known as anhydrobiosis, meaning "life without water." A quarter of its body weight is converted to a material that encircles and protects its inner organs. It then shrinks to about 7 percent of its normal size and waits out the dry spell. Scientists assure us that humans can't do this, but I'm not so sure. A wife leaves her husband – “Now that the kids are grown," she announces, "it's my time to have fun." Recent headlines reported on a man who murdered his estranged wife and kids. His justification? If he can't have them, no one will. Anhydrobiosis of the heart. In-drawn emotions. Callous souls. Coiled and re-coiled against the love drought of life. Hard shelled to survive the harsh desert.

But we were not made to live that way. So, what can we do? From the file entitled, "It Ain't Gonna Happen," how about this suggestion. Let's make Christ's command a federal law. Everyone has to make God's love his or her home: “Let it herewith be stated and hereby declared: No person may walk out into the world to begin the day until he or she has stood beneath the cross to receive God's love.” Cabbies. Presidents. Preachers. Dentists and truck drivers. All are required to linger at the fountain of his favor until all their thirst is gone. I mean, a can't-drink-another-drop kind of satisfaction. All hearts hydrous. Then, and only then, are they permitted to enter the interstates, biology labs, classrooms and boardrooms of the world.

Can you imagine the change we'd see? Less honking and locking horns; more hugging and helping kids. We'd pass fewer judgments and more compliments. Forgiveness would skyrocket because how could you refuse to give someone a second chance when God has made your life one big mulligan? Doctors would replace sedative prescriptions with Scripture meditation: "Six times an hour reflect on God's promise: 'I have loved you with an everlasting love.'" (Jer. 31:3) And can't you just hear the newscasts? "Since the implementation of the love law, divorce rates have dropped, cases of runaway children have plummeted, and Republicans and Democrats have disbanded their parties and decided to work together." Wild idea? I agree. God's love can't be legislated. But it can be chosen.

So why not choose it? For the sake of your heart. For the sake of your home. For Christ's sake, and yours, choose it. The prayer is as powerful as it is simple: "Lord, I receive your love. Nothing can separate me from your love." Go deeper. Take a breath and descend so deeply into his love that you see nothing else. Then you can join the psalmist in saying: “Who have I in heaven but you? I desire you more than anything on earth. My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever . . . . My heart has heard you say, ‘Come and talk with me.’ And my heart responds, “Lord, I am coming.’" (Ps. 73:25-26; 27:8)

Dive deeper into God’s love – the experience is made sweeter the deeper we delve.

Grace,

Randy