Responding to His Love

August 2, 2015

“Jesus, I too desire relationship with You. Rather than seek Your help today, I choose to seek Your beautiful heart. I want to respond to the love that You extended to me first” a prayer from the book The Pleasure of His Company by Dutch Sheets​

When I read that line, the scripture from 1 John 4:19 immediately rose in my spirit “We love Him because He first loved us.” I started thinking about how we respond to this great love that we have been given. Do we respond in routine gestures and activities? Do we respond in obligation? Do we respond as we think we are supposed to? Do we respond as imitators of those around us?

For me, my response to the love of our Lord is messy. I have been through some stuff in my life and have seen the Lord move in miraculous ways not just for me, but for so many others. I have been stirred up in my spirit lost in prayer only He can answer. I have danced so lost in worship that I didn’t hear when the music ended. I have sung praises until my throat is raw. My heart responding to His heart. My brokeness responding to His grace. My hope responding to His faithfulness. When I am responding to Him, I cannot do the routine thing. I cannot respond out of obligation. I cannot worry who is watching what I am sure is a strange sight. All I can do is give everything that is in me and lay it bare before Him. All I can do is let the fullness of my heart overflow in response to His love. So my response to His love is messy, but it is beautiful in His sight because it is deep crying out to deep.