Growing up in a Christian home and attending church for as long as I have been alive, I have lost count of the number of times I have heard about God’s love and how He loves me personally. Hearing it is one thing, experiencing it, seeing it, feeling it, and living with it is another thing altogether.
It’s only been since I personalized God’s love for me as an individual that I really started to feel like I was gaining an understanding of His love. I forget where I was or when it was exactly, but I remember being in a service and being told to insert my name into John 3:16 in the place where the verse says the world and then personalize the rest of the verse. That made the verse say, ‘For God so loved Liane that He gave His only begotten Son, that when she believes in Him, she will have everlasting life.’ For God so loved Liane. Wow! Put your own name in there.
John also wrote in 1 John 3:1, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” His love is extravagant and He loves to demonstrate His love towards us.
This year has been a year of transformation for me personally and spiritually. There’s been way too much going on and happening to possibly cram into one blog post, so I won’t even try. Please look at my about me page on this blog and watch a video or two about the ice water rescue my husband and I were involved in on February 6, 2013. It’s a night I will never, ever forget for as long as I live.
Our local fire chief John Whelan is quoted in the media reports describing the rescue as miraculous and saying, “It’s a wonder they were not swept down the river.”
It’s a miracle that any of the three of us that were in the river that night are alive. It’s God’s love that kept me safe that night. I know this because of what I found in Psalm 94:18. It says, “When I felt my feet slipping, you came with your love and kept me steady.”
I lost my footing many times while I was in the river and yet every time I went down into the water, I miraculously regained my footing and was not swept away – “you came with your love and kept me steady” – when I read this verse for the first time after the accident in the river, God’s incredible love displayed that night overwhelmed me all over again and I cried for hours and then off and on again for a whole day. Not tears of sorrow, tears of thankfulness, tears for the reminder of how much God loves us and tears of gratitude for the incredible lengths that God is willing to go to so He can show us His great love.
I am so incredibly humbled that God would choose to use me to help a friend who was in danger. Even more humbling though is experiencing His love for me up close and personal. Just this one aspect of that night in February has radically changed my life and how I view life.
I wish there was a way that I could properly express how much God truly and passionately loves each one of us – to be able to accurately convey His love to those I come into contact with, but the truth is that He is the best one at doing that. I am just trying to be a reflection of Him, and I am far from perfect.
I have found that in my attempts to extend love to those I come into contact with, that I have more patience and more compassion than I have ever had before. Can I do better yet – definitely, I’m still growing and still working on my journey of faith. I think if we can see spiritual growth in our lives and can see evidence of the Holy Spirit working through us, then we are moving forward in our relationship with Jesus Christ.
I don’t think there is any middle ground when it comes to our relationships with God. I think we’re either moving closer to God or we’re moving away from God. When I think about my relationship with my husband of over 20 years, our relationship today is very different than when we were dating or even 10 years ago. Our relationship has grown and we are closer together. Unfortunately, there are some marriages where the relationship doesn’t grow closer over time and the people drift apart from each other.
Our relationship with God is a matter of our choice. God has already made His choice – He wants to be in relationship with you. How close you are to God, is your choice. How quickly you move forward and grow closer to God is also up to you.
My great-grandmother once told me that there’s absolutely nothing on this earth that is more important than a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and that a person should never let any circumstance, thing or person come between them and Jesus, because nothing is more important than Jesus. She was a wise woman of God and I believe what she said is absolutely true. Nothing is more important.
God is not a mystery. He doesn’t hide from us. Jeremiah 29:13 says, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Praying and seeking God will lead to a closer relationship with Him. I hope you will seek Him for yourself – as my great-grandma said, there’s absolutely nothing on this earth that is more important than your personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Be blessed.