It was Easter and my friends and I were sitting on the roof of our house. We sat huddled in the cold as the Himalayan Mountains towered behind us. We were asked to answer one question, “what does the cross mean to you?” Silence. And then voices began to emerge out of the darkness, each expressing something different about how this one event in history had changed their lives and brought them to this very moment.
Sometimes when I think about the love of God, I imagine a big heart beating overhead.
Thump-thump Thump-thump.
It’s like with each beat of His heart He’s saying, “I love you, won’t you let me love you? Won’t you look my way? Won’t you come alive in me?” And even when we say no, or we ignore Him, there remains the thump. Thump. Thump. This was one of those times.
In the Bible it says of God, “You shall surround me with songs of deliverance” (Psalm 32:7) and, “He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing”(Zepheniah 3:17). I think that’s so beautiful. I like it because even when we’re not aware of it, He is speaking life and love over us. Grace. And love is the only thing that can change a person. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
God is inviting us into something bigger than we even realize or can comprehend.
Our stories testify that the heartbeat and the song are really there.
I grew up going to church and as a kid I always considered myself a Christian. I think that I did love God in the small way that I could imagine who He was and what He did for me. But my understanding was limited and as I got a little bit older, I began to question God, question my faith, and question nearly everything I had known. By the time I was halfway through high school I had moved from being a Christian to an agnostic, bordering on atheist. I was critical of religion, Christianity more than any other. I had come to the conclusion that there were different ways of believing in things and that whatever was true for you personally was your truth. Christianity, on the other hand, was for the ignorant–a crutch and a delusion. The essay I wrote to get into college pretty much summed up my belief that religion was foolish and you should just think for yourself.
But festering beneath the surface of all of this I had become closed-off, bitter, insecure, confused, fearful, lost. My dad had died after years of battling cancer and so I felt justified in maintaining these feelings. I didn’t know who I was anymore. The person who used to be joyful and easygoing as a kid had become scared of what people thought, overly self-conscious, and anxious. I was in all sorts of bondage that I didn’t even fully realize at the time. And so I stopped caring and eventually lost myself in the party scene, putting on a mask and trying to get attention. Every morning I would wake up with a pang of regret and nausea in my gut, but learned to ignore it all and instead laugh it off with my friends.
But then I got to the end of my rope. Through everything, I truly felt I was looking for “truth,” whatever that meant. I searched in philosophy, and eastern religions, and meditation, and wherever else. But there remained a part of me that was unsatisfied and empty. I started to get scared. Existential dread filled my soul…underneath the independent exterior was someone who was confused. Why couldn’t I find solace in any of these things? Why did I feel so alone and in chains? I cried out for freedom but I didn’t feel free at all. I looked in every place I knew but couldn’t find what I was looking for. You see, in all of my searching for truth, what I really needed was a Father.
Jesus. It was the name that sounded like a dull echo in the back of my mind. I knew that He said He was the one way to salvation, but I had no idea how I could go back to Him at this point. I was honestly really afraid.
The next night, I got into my car to drive back up to school. I still couldn’t shake the feeling of unease and fear and I broke. I just remember feeling helpless and undone. I missed my dad and I didn’t know what to do or where to go. But then something happened that I wasn’t expecting at all. It’s still kind of hard to describe, but it just felt like a wave of love came down and enveloped me. What happened was unlike anything I had ever experienced. It was as if a light went on inside of me as verses from the Bible that I had learned as a kid started flooding into my mind and I understood them for the first time. I was at the end of myself, crying out for my Father, and there He came. And then later that night I was walking on the street and I received this freedom and joy like I had never known before. I felt like I was bursting at the seams- I could be myself and not be afraid anymore. I found such hope! It’s still crazy for me to realize, Jesus was the one I had unknowingly been searching for all along.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
A lot of people don’t recognize His heartbeat. They call it inspiration or creativity or love and it is all of these things, but it is also much more than them. Human love alone cannot offer what He offers. The love of God. It is the only thing strong enough to literally make dead people and dead hearts come to life. Jesus rose from the dead in the morning so that we too could rise from our own graves, see the light of the new day, take a deep breath, and to truly live for the first time.
When Jesus died he was hung from a cross with his arms outstretched and his heart bleeding out. That’s what love looks like. That is what God’s heartbeat sounds like. [Christ is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15)]. This single event in history changes everything. God died in our place. You see, the blood that poured out of Jesus on that day has the power to wash you of your sin and stain, and to pump real living blood into your veins and to make your heart come alive! This is the divine melody filling the universe. And with every beat of His heart He invites us into the dance. I pray that you would incline your ear to the sound, and that you would say yes to Him.
