Dear People Who Keep Company With God,
I had just taken a spill face first onto the sidewalk in front of an outdoor café full of lunchtime patrons just a few feet away. I had an egg-sized welt on my temple and blood dripping down my face. I felt foolish and a little helpless.
As I sat there with an ice pack to my head this thought came into my mind, “If God loves me why did He let this happen to me?” That is not a surprising thought, but I dismissed it because I knew I was in no shape to entertain such thinking.
Later that evening, at our God Encounter meeting we started singing John Mark’s song, How He Loves Us, and a wave of God’s love swept through the room. It was incredible and my spirit was stirred and I had a vision. It was a vision I had seen before. It was the martyrs from eternity past marching to their sure deaths. The first time I had the vision I was shaken to my core by the look on the martyrs’ faces. It was of absolute love and adoration for the Lord Jesus Christ.
This time I saw something more. I realized the martyrs were focusing on something; it was on the love that Christ had for them. At that moment I said, “Oh, I get it now.” It was like something clicked inside of me. It was not only God addressing that thought I had earlier in the day, but something much greater. Paul prayed that it would be granted to us to grasp His love (Eph. 3:14-18). God granted to me at that moment a whole new revelation of His love. It is really hard to put into words. I have had many revelations of His love over the years, but this is a whole different dimension of His love.
John Mark wrote that song the night his closest friend was killed in a fiery automobile accident. Bad things happen, tragic things happen, there are stumbling blocks out there literally and spiritually (Luke 17:1), but as it says in the song, “I don’t have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way He loves us…” It really is healing, transforming and liberating to think about the way He loves us.
I thought about my granddaughter, Madalyn. A couple of months ago she fell from the top of our hardwood floor stairs to the bottom. I saw her on the last three steps headed face first for the hardwood floor! I saw her land like she was laying down for a nap on a feather pillow. There was not one mark on that baby.
I thought about the time in the 6th grade when we were playing a game where we held our breath and someone would bear hug us from behind until we went limp. One day the kid bear hugging me held me way too long and I went into a convulsion and I started seeing a movie of my life. (It is true our whole life really does pass before us when we die). I felt an invisible hand touch me, the movie stopped and I heard the teacher ask, “Are you ok?”
I thought about the time as a teen that I overdosed on LSD and was standing on the edge of an abyss, which I knew was the entrance to hell and I heard a voice say, “You do not have to go there.” I turned around and walked away from that place and began to regain control of my mind.
All of the sudden I am not thinking about why I stumbled and fell instead I am thinking about all the times He didn’t allow something much worse to happen.
I believe love is the greatest key to the kingdom of heaven, because God Himself is love and all of heaven is attracted to love. If you want heaven to be attracted to you and your life, dwell on His love for you.
Why not stop focusing on your love for God and start dwelling on His love for you? It will make a huge difference. As Arthur Burt told us many times, “The greater always includes the lesser, but the lesser does not include the greater.”
Many Blessings, BW