There in the dark, late at night, it was  midsummer and I was running for exercise, but really for much more.  I was lonely in this small town in the middle of no where.  I reached a small sign marking the city limits, exhausted, I paused and walked in a circle before returning.  There I poured out my need and yearning for all I was unable to articulate, or express in words – fears, unfulfilled hopes, isolation, aloneness, love, and a future that was as unclear as the night around me.  I had reached another place marking the limits of my self-sufficiency.  Unable to bear my burden any longer, I cast all my anxiety upon Him, the Lord of all.  In surrender it was clear that He alone was the source of all supply, of lasting hope and a future.  In that moment, He affirmed His deep undying love for me, far from anyone or anything that 

might seem relevant to a relationship.  Forty years later, I remember His presence in that moment as clear as yesterday.

We have so much need for love in all its various manifestations from kindness and friendship to intimacy.  Just as we need to eat and drink very regularly, we need a regular supply of love received and given.  Love is poured out by God into our heart.  As it overflows and does His work of healing and restoration we become agents and instruments of God’s loving work.  We are very complex and were fashioned in God’s image, wonderfully made.  We were given gifts of intellect, art, music, talents, physical abilities, spiritual attributes that go far beyond our rational ability of reason.  Even our life, which God saw before we were conceived, is filled with good deeds for you and I to do.  Mountain tops in the presence of our heavenly father, dark valleys in the midst of spiritual conflict, these were granted for God’s Glory and our good.  Our worth and personhood is precious to God, because He brought us to life so that we will find in Him the relationship and love we so desperately need.  “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God.  The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.  The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples.  But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.  Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.” (Deut. 7: 6-9).

A recent acquaintance shared with me how bountiful was the word of God to him, how it brought insight, rest and peace.  “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.  For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” (Col. 3: 1-4).  As a believer your life is new, not your own, but hidden with Messiah, Yeshua in God.  Just as God is invisible, so is your true recreated spiritual being. It’s not just mystical, but your life is a documentary of love.  God’s love moving flowing into and through you at the precise time and to the exact people for whom you are sent with love from the lover of your soul.