When I was a young girl, the Beatles sang, “All you need is love.” The feel-good song captured a glimmer of the truth. Experiencing God’s love opens the floodgates of everything else God is and has for his children.
It wasn’t easy for me to relate to a loving father God. Abandoned by my own father and abused by other men, I didn’t have a good role model to turn to. God lovingly placed several wonderful pastors in my life, and also showed me the power of his love when my mother turned to him.
As I learned to depend on God’s love through difficult times, things like divorce and my daughter’s suicide, I knew through Scripture that God made me strong, and that God loved me. Period.
What I discovered along the way was that as I stood firm on God’s love, he revealed more and more of himself to me. The more he revealed, the more I became like him, although I didn’t always recognize it.
The trials we go through can show us the breadth, depth, length, and width of his unending love for us (see Ephesians 3:18), even though it seems beyond our ability to grasp it at the moment. The more we allow God’s love into our lives, the more he can fill us with himself.
Our Lord and Savior, like Paul, I pray that you will dwell in our hearts by faith, and that we will understand more and more of your love, that we may be filled with everything you have for us. In and because of and for your precious name, amen.
Go Deeper — Read out loud Ephesians 3:16-19. Claim it. Who else do you know who needs to hear it as well?
Read Further — Read how one person dealt with the death of a loved one. If you have suffered a loss of a loved one, or know someone who has, it may encourage you.
Photo Credit: Qui Ngyuen