Hey Lifespring,
I really wanted to write you guys a note of encouragement for today’s devotional.
I feel like the Lord simply wants to cheer you up today. To lift up your eyes and have you look upon his loving smile. To pause for a moment and hear him call your name; to receive the short and sweet, “I love you, Child!”
In times of accelerated growth and excessive changes it can seem counterintuitive to slow down or to shift your attention from what is needing to get done or prepared!
Time spent truly receiving the love of God is never wasted.
In times like this, we actually need to pause and receive God’s love… We even need to pause and extend some love to ourselves!
Do you realize that you are surviving a history-making, record breaking, global pandemic?
Sit with that for a moment.
That which was absolutely impossible for you to imagine back in March, you have not only faced but survived and overcome!
If Covid were a pregnancy, we would be just a few weeks away from our due date… It has already been so long that we would be past the eight month marker and preparing for labour! Except the coronavirus is not a little bundle of joy.
Later today, we will be getting announcements about how we are to proceed in this fight against Covid-19. We will be given new restrictions and given another new set of instructions for how to advance as safely as possible.
Rather than automatically powering through to how we move forward, I’d really love for you to pause and consider how far you’ve come and some of what you have learned along the way… You have SO much to be proud of!!
Even if you never did a single thing again, if you have made zero progress throughout 2020, you are still inexpressibly loved and unfathomably worthwhile. Lack of conceptualization does not not make this untrue.
You are fearfully and wonderfully made! You have been created with purpose and destiny – the first and foremost of which is to be loved by your Creator. No matter what.
I was reminded this week of the song How He Loves and would like to leave you with some of the words from John Mark McMillan. My prayer is that each of us would choose to truly receive this overwhelmingly good and pure love. Moment by moment, and day by day.
He is jealous for me.
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realize just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.
We are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If His grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.
Heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest…
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about the way He loves us.