God, how big do you love me?
Believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it. ~~Rainer Maria Rilke*
When my youngest son was small, we had a routine for telling each other we loved each other as big as bigger and bigger things:
him: I love you as big as the ocean.
me: I love you as high as a mountain.
him: I love you as high as the moon.
me: I love you as high as the sun.
him: I love you as big as the universe.
me: I love you as big as the galaxy.
him: I love you as big as INFINITY!!
Just like my son, God would “win” any comparison of love. Pretty amazing love, isn’t it? The love of God is “a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.”
Rilke says you can travel as far as you wish, but God’s love is even bigger, bigger than anything or anyplace we could travel to. Many verses remind us of this.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him; ~~Psalm 101:11
and
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you. ~~Psalm 139:7-12
and
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. ~~Romans 8:38-39
and
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. ~~Ephesians 3:17-19
“…how WIDE and LONG and HIGH and DEEP is the LOVE OF CHRIST…” FOR YOU! (Pardon my shouting.)
* Have you heard of Rainer Maria Rilke? I first started hearing of Rilke several years ago when I listened to the podcast “On Being.” For quite a while, I assumed Rilke was a woman. Maria is a woman’s name, right? And Rainer certainly could be. I had a whole image of this wonderful, wise woman writer from the 1800’s. I thought how cool it was that a woman writer from that time was so well known. He is a man, though. That does not dim my admiration of him and his work, but his name still conjures up a woman in my mind. I remind myself, “Oh yeah, he’s a man.” It is kind of amusing. Here is a little bit about Rilke.