Your love is extravagant

Your love is extravagant,
your friendship is so intimate.
I find I’m moving to the rhythm of your grace,
your fragrance is intoxicating in our secret place.
Your love is extravagant.

Spread wide in the arms of Christ,
is a love that covers sin.
No greater love have I ever known
you consider me your friend.
Spread wide in the arms of Christ,
is a love that covers sin.
No greater love have I ever known
you consider me your friend.
Capture my heart again.
You’ve captured my heart again.

Those are lyrics. Thank you, Aaron Gillespie and The Almost for those beautiful, beautiful lyrics.

I’ve been listening to this song pretty much all day. It started at about 3 or 4pm, and I’ve had it on repeat ever since. Not because I’m a freak… but because the words are so soothing to my soul. “Spread wide in the arms of Christ is a love that covers sin” is the part that just hit me harder than before.

It blows my mind that someone could love me so much that they would die the most gruesome death for me. For me. It just blows me away, every single time. That the God who created the heavens and the earth, who decided how far the east would be from the west, who single handedly put all the stars in the sky, who counted all the grains of sand not only on the beach, but on the bottom of the ocean, and who created the human being, so intricate and complex, would die for me. That that guy would come down to this earth, so full of wretchedness and wickedness, and take the human form as Jesus from Nazareth and be willing to give up his own life… so that I could have the choice of loving Him back. He didn’t even require anything be paid back to him… that’s what’s even more amazing. He died because He knew that would be the only way for anyone here on earth to even have a chance at life. So that we could have a choice about how we lived our lives. That that guy, who did all those things without breaking a sweat, loves me. He loves who I am right now, and yet at the same time keeps pushing me towards the woman that he desires for me to one day become.

It hurts my heart, for a moment, thinking about how He suffered so much for this horrible world, so full of sin and wicked things. But I’m reminded that this isn’t such a horrible world after all, and although there is sin and plenty of wicked running rampant here… it’s not so bad. Because we have hope. That this hope somehow, for some reason, makes all the bad not so bad because God gave up a part of himself… that blows my mind. And I think I just had my mind blown three times in five minutes. God is awesome.

This song makes me cry when I really sit down and listen to it, and I feel silly for a second. But not when I realize that it’s okay to cry because all the words being sung are so, so true.

“I find I’m moving to the rhythms of your grace, your fragrance is intoxicating in our secret place.  Your love is extravagant”

The more I spend time talking to God, talking about God, listening to things being said about God, and reading about Him… the more I find I’m moving to the rhythms of his grace.  The grace that was poured out at the cross for my sins.  For all my failures, and for all my screw ups and uh-oh’s.  I keep falling in love with God over and over again, and He captures my heart again.  He captures my heart again.

It is now when I am broken that I am able to see just how much I need that extravagant love, that grace, that friendship.  I don’t even have the words right now to explain anything I want to say.  I have all these feelings inside me, thoughts running through my head… but words cannot do them justice.  The LORD is good, and the LORD is mighty to save, and the LORD has been so forgiving of me when I am nothing short of unforgiving to even the closest of my brothers and sisters.  I have been harsh and unruly, and I have been rude and cruel, and I am sorry for that.  I’m not sure why I’ve been acting this way, and the Lord has been good in that He revealed these missteps to me.  I have been trying to pick out the specks in my brothers’ eyes, all the while having a 2×4 in my own.  Why didn’t anyone tell me about this?  Why haven’t I been as observant?  Why have I been so set on seeing that I’m different than everyone else, that I’m better than them, that I am somehow higher up on the food chain?  We are filled to be emptied again, but I’m just waiting for when my cup is overflowing again.

The LORD is good.  He works everything out for the better for those who love Him.  Everything will be okay, to be sure… it’s just difficult to wait for that.

“Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.” Psalm 27:14

You’ve captured my heart again.

ps. I realize this blog was all over the place.  Tonight, that’s how my mind is.  Bear with me. (;

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Wait a second.  Am I whining and complaining?  No no no.  That is not allowed.

Back to the important part of this blog —

I really do think that more I spend time in the presence of the LORD, the more I’m changing.  I’ve come a long way in just the past few months, and I’m excited to keep pursuing the Lord with all that I have.  This is not a come and go, pick and choose thing.  This is a “I’ve decided, now I’m going to make it happen” thing.  So that’s the deal.  I like who I am becoming, who I have already become in just these few short months.  I pray that this fire inside of me wouldn’t burn out, but instead get stronger.  I have no reason to be complaining up there, and I am sorry about that.  His love is extravagant, and just because we may hit the slightest rough patch does not give us reason to start crying like a baby.  No.  I’m leaving it up there so that whoever reads this, if anyone, can see that whining just makes you look silly.  That last paragraph isn’t even coherent. (;

The point?  It’s been a good first few days back at school.  (;  God is good, and I am excited for what is going to be going on in the next few months.  Both within myself and here on campus throughout the student body.  Big things are happening.  Change is coming.

Love in Christ. (: