...He loves me...He loves me not...He loves me!

You ever feel like God couldn't possibly love you?  So many mistakes, so many lies, so many bad or even hateful attitudes, so many things gone wrong in this life...the list goes on and on.  We're currently studying how to manage money, time, relationships and the environment in the youth department at church (I'm a leader not a "youth" though compared to eternity, I'm still pretty young.)  Anyway, in today's lesson, one key point is that God loves us and it got me to thinking.  I've heard that for years and only in the last decade have I really started to believe it a personal way.  So, I thought that I would share how I finally began to grasp this truth, (say it out loud) God loves me.

I hope you have a good imagination because we are going to be using it.  I love the beach and this may be part of the reason why.  Imagine you're on the beach looking out at the ocean (you pick your favorite one.)  Close your eyes and feel the cooling breeze as the sun warms you.  Wiggle your toes in the sand then look out across the sandy beach. Now pick up a handful of that sand and let it sift through your fingers. Look closely at your hand and concentrate on one grain, then look at the beach again and imagine how many grains it takes to make that beach.  Are you seeing it?  Okay, now look at the ocean again.  Imagine you are a fish (you pick which kind) in that ocean.  Did you know that there are places, if you rest on the ocean floor, underwater, that there would be a mountain to your right and a crevice as deep as the mountain is high to your left?  Hugeness!  Are you feeling small?  Now think of a drop of ocean water then look around at how many drops it would take to fill that ocean you are swimming around in. I think you're getting the picture.

Okay, now come up for air - you're human again. Psalm 139 says *you are "fearfully an wonderfully made." God knows we are not perfect, but he tells us in **Romans 5:8 that "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."  He covered the debt I owe.

Now the verse I'm about to type is the one that finally drew back a curtain so that I could begin to see how much He loves me.  And here it is:
I pray that YOU, being rooted and established in *love, would have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the **love of Christ, and to know this love which surpasses knowledge that you will be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.  Ephesians 3:17-19

Did you catch the ocean analogy?  Now, we're back in the ocean, drenched through and through.  If our family, friends, even our acquaintances, well hello - everyone on the that crowded beach, join us in the water and get drenched too, do we feel any less surrounded by the water?  That's exactly how God's love is, after all, Jesus gives living water (John 4.)

I hope you caught it.  Even at times when circumstances or people make us think "He loves me not," we can trust Him at His word when He says, "I love YOU." (John 3:16)  I pray YOU too will grasp how wide and long and high and deep His love for you is and that you'll be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (That's a lot of grains and drops!)