He Loved Me Ere I Knew Him

Do you really believe that all things work together for good to those who love Christ?  I do!  

Case in point:  yesterday I was compelled to look over some of my previous writings and came across several that touched me, saddened me, and/or made me reflect on how far I have come.  As I read through several of these stories, many highs and lows were there but instead of dwelling on them and letting them control my thoughts and feelings as they had been prone to do in the past, I set them aside.  I went on about my day and didn’t give them a second thought.

Imagine my surprise and delight--which was one of the key points to last night’s message but wasn’t revealed until after this song had been sung--when voila`!  Once again God showed Himself mighty and made something so clear to me that I just marvelled then and am still dazedly shaking my head at the simplicity of it.  We sang the song “Victory in Jesus” and as the chorus echoed around me, these words stood out:  He loved me ere I knew Him.  No big deal, right?  I mean, haven’t we all sung these words hundreds of times before and just assumed that of course Jesus loved us?  I mean, after all, why would He have created us if not because of love?

And then I remembered.  I remembered the story from earlier that I had read.  It was about my first grandson’s impending arrival.  Oh, how excited I was!  How happy, thrilled, and ecstatic I was that a precious child was being added to my family.  I had been given the opportunity to see this babe while still in Mama’s womb and I was already enraptured.  While the ultrasound was grainy and truthfully I had to have the technician’s assistance to see, there he was.  This tiny little glob of cells and DNA and flesh and blood and...hope.  Love.  

Excitement built within me as I thought of all of the things to teach this kid, the songs to sing, the stories to tell, the memories to make, the preparations, the wondering of how much I’d get to be in his life...On and on my thoughts ran and the wonder of creation.  

So, in conclusion, as the congregation and I sang this song last night, the words “He loved me ere I knew Him” really sank in.  Much more than the overwhelming affection I was feeling for this soon-to-be-grandchild was the love that God had for me.  Before the foundations of the world, He was planning for my arrival.  Before He took the dust to form me, He loved me.  And just as my grandchild had no idea about me until he learned about me after his birth and through his life, the love was already present, already waiting, already being fulfilled.  I didn’t know Jesus first.  I had to hear about Him, to be introduced to Him, to accept this love He so wanted to give to me.  I had to be taught to love Him because He was a stranger to me, just as children are to their parents.  They learn love from being held, from being taken care of, and smooched upon.  They learn what security means--and dependence as well.  They have no idea how much they are cherished until one day it all clicks and those three words we say often so casually make sense:  I love you.  And then when they are repeated back to us?  Oh my!

Jesus loved us first.  “We love Him because He first loved us” is how John the Beloved explained it in his first epistle, chapter four and verse nineteen. Eugene Monroe Bartlett wrote the song “Victory in Jesus” to share further that truth.  And yours and my responsibility is to continue in love (Hebrews 13:1).  We have the best Teacher.  Let’s fulfill His commandment to love one another as He loved us, shall we?  I think so too!

Let’s pray!

Dear Father God, how precious You are to me!  The constant ways You show me--remind me--of just how special I am to You confound me.  It’s not easy for me, as You know, to feel adored but here lately You seem to be making that more and more clear to me.  Even though Your Word tells me, it’s often hard for me to accept such tenderness and mercy because I feel so undeserving.

As I strive to be more like Christ Jesus, I ask You to keep giving me these flashes, these insights, and these revelations of the promises You made and make them personal like in this song because, hard as it is for me to sometimes believe, You do love me.  You loved me first and have taught me how to love in return.  Oh what a gift!  May I pay-it-forward without hesitation is my hope today.  In the name of Jesus I pray:  amen.

PS

I love You too!

Persepctive, Part Two

So, as I am telling Steve about my blog, lo and behold, what light doth from yonder window breaks?  Yep, you guessed it:  the sun rise!  While I was busy reflecting on what my neighbours COULD NOT see, I forgot about what they COULD see from their vantage point, just at a different time of the day.  Hmn:  timing.  It certainly has its way of changing the perspective of things, now doesn't it?                                                              

So, as I am busy pondering that one, another thought comes to me:  movement.  As I was so busy waiting for the sun to rise so I could add this addendum to my blog, I was impatient, wondering if it was ever going to come out.  I went back and forth, from the bathroom window to the back porch, awaiting its arrival.  It was cold out there and I was getting a little aggravated, wondering why the sun wasn’t cooperating with me.  I stepped to my right and...there it was.  The brilliance of it nearly blinded me but, you see, I had to move.  Just a little to my right.  Just had to look past the trees and there, right there it was.  

Mmn hmn.  

Reminds me of that song by FFH “Lord Move...Or Move Me.”  Sometimes we have to get out of our comfort zone (even if that means stepping into the cold) to see the big picture:  to see the Son.  

Anyways, just thought I’d add these thoughts to this morning’s blog.  Hope you enjoy them!

Perspective

If you were to ask my neighbours what the big deal is, why I keep staring so intently at their house, day after day, week after week, I am sure they would be dumbfounded to know that I do so because of all of the marvelous sunsets I am witnessing just beyond their vantage point.  I mean, after all, we share the same sky, right?  We are within almost shouting distance of one another.  Why, should they look up at the same sky I am enthralled with, they’d probably think I had lost what marbles I had left.  “What’s the big deal” they might ask one another.  “I don’t see anything but darkness setting in.”  They’d probably shake their heads, laugh at their crazy neighbour, and go back inside, perhaps just every so often going to their back window to check and see if maybe, just maybe ol’ Stef was on to something after all.

But they wouldn’t see it.  

However, should you ask my neighbour up on the hill, she might have a completely different reaction.  “See it?” she’d exclaim.  “Why you, Stefanie, are only getting a glimpse of what rapturous beauty I am beholding!  If so, you’d be at my house every night, waiting for the opportunity to see what God paints next!”

Perspective.  From one angle, things look this way.  From another’s point of view the facts may not be as evident.  And from still another’s one would realize, as my friend Susan once said, there’s three sides to every story:  yours, mine, and the truth.

As things are presented to you today, friends, I encourage you to check out the other sides of the “details” given and see if perhaps you should examine them from another angle before making your final conclusion.  Things are not always what they seem and sometimes we just have to move a little to gain a more vivid accounting of what has been put before us so that we can see if a fair accounting is taking place or if we are only seeing through the glass dimly.

Let’s pray!

Well, once again Father, this blog did not go where I thought it was going to!  Nonetheless, as my readers examine it, I pray that this example of perspective, of examining our motives and the motives of others will encourage us to think for ourselves instead of just accepting things at face value.  Too often we are too lazy to seek out the truth, relying instead on others’ thoughts and “knowledge” about situations to find that there just may be another point of view out there that is more trustworthy, more eye-opening, and better able to point us to You, the real Truth.

Help us, I ask, to seek You today in all that we do, say, and offer to others.  In the radiant name of Christ Jesus I pray, amen.  Oh, and Lord?  Thanks for the beautiful sunsets!  I appreciate them!