I woke up Sunday morning and made my way to the kitchen as I usually do, making the coffee pot my first stop then getting out the mixing bowls, whisks, pans, and ingredients to make breakfast. Monkey bread was on the menu for the morning, so I made up Paula Deen's biscuit dough recipe and started dipping chunks into melted butter with cinnamon and sugar. The delicious smell filled the entire kitchen after only a few minutes of being in the oven. I was excited for this breakfast, except for the fact that after searching far and wide for powdered sugar at the grocery store I had zero luck finding it and couldn't do a glaze. As I was pulling the monkey bread out of the oven I halfway jokingly prayed aloud for powdered sugar. Well, God decided to answer that prayer…before I knew it, one of the staff members at our home pulled out a coffee grinder filled with powdered sugar. The perfect amount to make a glaze (which made the monkey bread heavenly). I learned that grocery stores don't sell powdered sugar and you have to make it by grinding up regular sugar, so I now have an abundance of powdered sugar. Having even that simple prayer answered left me in a great mood. Little did I know that was just the beginning…
I have to backtrack a little to make this story complete. Earlier in the week I wrote about a moment of revelation that had me praying for God to reveal His love to me so that I could love the way He loves. I was sitting on the floor full on monkey bread when God answered that prayer in a big way. I had Sweetly Broken playing on my ipod and it hit me like a tidal wave what it meant for Jesus to die on that cross. I've grown up hearing about it and knowing the significance of it, but this time I felt the weight of it. Despite my selfishness, my tendency to pursue all the things of this world, my stubbornness when it comes to turning from sin, Jesus chose to suffer on that cross….for me. I have no way of knowing the physical pain that He felt, being beaten, having thorns crammed onto His head, and having his hands and feet nailed to a chunk of wood. I make a fuss over a little sliver in my finger or a stubbed toe. Then to hang there in the pain and have people mock Him and laugh at Him. How lonely He must have felt. He did that all for me, out of His love for me so that I don't have to be bound to the mistakes I've made and will continue to make in life. Just thinking about this brought me to a place where my heart was aching. And then I thought about how God had to watch all of this happen to His Son. The agony He must have felt. He had the power to make it stop, to make the pain go away. It was a choice to let all this happen. A choice driven by a passionate, all-consuming love for me, for us. As all of this sunk in the tears began to flow and before I could attempt to keep myself together the tears turned into full blown weeping. The price that was paid so that I can delight in the freedom that I experience every day. To be able to delight in God's presence daily and feel His love in big and small moments throughout my day.
Through that moment of realizing how far and wide and deep God's love truly is for me, I felt a sadness. It made me question why I am so quick to take advantage of such a love. How does it not bring me to my knees every single day? Why am I so reluctant to embrace it fully? I have this priceless gift before me and so often I ignore it, whether it's because I don't think it is really something I deserve or whether I am too busy seeking some other worldly pleasure that I think will satisfy me more.
My heart quickly went from dwelling on the times that I neglect to feel and experience God's love for me, to those who have yet to feel it personally. For those who are hurting, broken, caught in the struggle of an addiction and don't know of the freedom and hope that stems from the love that God is desperate to pour out on each one of us. My heart has begun breaking on a whole new level for those who don't know the love of God, for those who have rejected it, and for those who find themselves too undeserving to pursue it. It is a brokenness that has led me to my knees in prayer – crying out to God. At times I don't even have the words to cry out. I know it is just a small taste of the longing and desperation that God feels for each one of His children. Whether you want it or not, He is pursuing you.
All I can say is that I am so thankful for that pursuit.
