Stopped In My Tracks

Over the last year or so, God revealed to me all of the walls I've continually built up. I hide who I am in order to avoid getting hurt. I try not to get too close to people because I'm afraid they'll reject me. My close friends know this, and some of them have even known it since they first started getting to know me.

Well, in case you haven't noticed, God's not a big fan of walls. He's always tearing them down. So it is with me. In January, I remember being so small and vulnerable on my knees before the Lord, laying everything I am down at His feet. And ever since then, He's used that. There have been moments where I get overwhelmed with studying and projects and He tells me a verse and I stop. One evening I went for a walk, and, looking out, I was pulled to my knees by God's greatness. Things like this have happened more and more frequently as I've made myself readily available and vulnerable to the Lord.

Tonight, I had one such moment. I went out to pick up some dinner and bring it back to my room to continue working on a few things. I had my iPod in, and I was listening to the "Beautiful Exchange" album from Hillsong, as I have many times before.

This song came on:
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And I stopped. I've heard this song probably a hundred times. But I stopped right where I was. I sat and I smiled as tears streamed quietly down my face. How many times have we tried to define, explain, experience, feel, and evoke love? It's been a central theme in one of my courses this semester, and I've spent the past few days completely wrapped up in the planning of my final project: a museum exhibit of cross-centered single and married life. And that's the key. Cross-centered. At the foot of the cross is where we find true, pure, unconditional love.

We didn't deserve that. What claim did we have to a perfect God in the flesh giving His life for our own? We've rejected Him, we've forgotten Him, we've disobeyed Him, but in all that, Jesus Christ hung on a cross for us. He gave all He was, is and will be to us.

That, I believe, is the very definition of love.

But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.Romans 5:8