How He Loves Us

"His love is like a hurricane and I am a tree..."

Have you stopped lately to consider God’s love for you?  Have you in amazement meditated on Holy God’s jealous desire for you??  Have you pondered His great affection for you, or the fathomless ocean of grace you swim in every moment of life?  Sometimes, God catches me unaware with a warm personal reminder of how deep, high, wide, and eternal His love is for me.  Then, in ecstasy, I have to somehow find a way to respond to His love while still remaining in this skin.  My heart in those moments yearns to depart from my chest and run upon the waves toward Jesus, to throw longing arms about His neck and cover Him with kisses forever.  Tonight God shone His Beauty all around me, and swept me away in His love!!

"If grace is an ocean, we're all sinking..."

I wish you could step into my heart and know a little history, but I trust God can make personal for you His message of love and hope without you possessing such knowledge.  Nothing limits God!!  So, on to the encounter.

Driving home from lifegroup the Lord brought to mind in vivid detail a patient I had cared for the past two nights.  Then He turned the spotlight on her name, her first name.  It so happens, that God inscribed this name on my heart in June 2010.  At that time He endeared me to a little girl bearing the same name who changed my life forever.  I can’t describe how I felt as God repeatedly spoke this name to me in the car until it hit me.  I had been addressing my patient by her last name all this time, overlooking her first.  God took me to a scene from the night before when her brother called her repeatedly by her first name!  It finally dawned on me, God had much to say concerning this person and His heart for her.  He now had my undivided attention!!  I treasure His voice and His timing.

The Lord spoke to me His thoughts about this patient, intimate personal thoughts about how deeply He loved her, viewed and valued her, and how He strongly desired to speak HOPE from heaven over her right this minute.  I glanced at the clock on the dash and realized that I had 30 minutes before visiting hours would be over at the hospital.  I drove past the street leading to my home, cut over to Highway 6, and headed for the hospital.  I felt profoundly compelled to go, all the way the words of God playing continually in my head.  He expressed that He wanted her to know that He had a future and a hope for her.  He inspired prayer en route for the breaking off of chains potentially contributing to her current state of health.  He led me into battle for her in the heavenlies.  Then He prompted me to pray for full restoration and recovery of all bodily systems, and indicated I was to do this again audibly at her bedside.  Excitement rose in my heart, mingled with the tension that accompanies entering a room with such a mission from God.  After all, He held out to me an invitation to step into “impossibility” with Him and ask for miracles, something a little outside the norm and comfort zone.

"Go ahead.  Step into the waters with Him!!"

I opened my car door and the biting wind tousled my hair, and resisted my approach to the building with an icy hand.   Nonetheless, I proceeded with a holy compulsion from the Father.  He reminded me of the lengths He went to in pursuit of His chosen ones, with a message of love and hope burning unquenchable in His heart.  He simultaneously lit a fire in me, and it was a delight to be warmed by Him from the inside out!!  I bounded up the stairs and entered the room to find family present.  I told them what God had said and directed me to do, asking their permission.  Then I stepped up close, put my hand on her forehead, my lips to her ear, and while stroking her hair spoke and prayed the heart of God over her.  I felt nearer to Him than I can describe as He breathed through me His words of hope, of love, and of life.  As I left the building God encouraged me to continue to believe what We had prayed would indeed come to pass!!  And I asked Him for more faith to keep on believing in the miracle He desired to give to this one so precious to Him.  I experienced His heart for her and for me, much as I did months ago under the summer Ugandan moon.   On my way out, I thought about the price He paid to set  captives free, to heal every disease, to gather His redeemed ones up in His arms and delight them with the indescribable joy of knowing Him.  How can you say thanks for a gift of such magnitude??

"You're my Healer, Lord!!!"

I turned on Kari Jobe and took the highway home.  Two songs back to back were God’s answers to my prayer for more faith.  I sang them with God over my patient.  I encourage you to listen to Healer and How He Loves Us posted at right.  May you be blessed as I have been this evening by how He loves us!!  Oh to walk with God in this life!!!  He is such an awesome Father, Friend, Healer, Lover, and thrills to take us on adventures of restoration, if we will only listen and brave the winds of resistance.  Please pray with me for the patient mentioned, for this apple of God’s eye, whom He desires to heal and restore.  He knows her name!!

Dedicated to Jesus and a special little one of His!

I love You, Lord, more than I can say – burn deep and bright inside me – fill and consume me with Your holy fire, and take me up and into Your glorious purposes for others in my sphere.

Praying Boldly In His Shadow,

Terry