And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. - 1 John 4: 16-19
People. Apparently God's best creation. Also His most frustrating one! God cares about people. He cares about them when we can't. Sometimes that is the only reason we can care about people is because He does. The caring doesn't make it easy to get close, to push past barriers, to open ourselves up; that is our own choice, but God does the caring.
About a month ago now, God did something that was new to me. He often brings new people into my life, but never before has He told me to hold onto someone, not to let go, that He had brought them into my life and me into their life for a reason, to care for them NO MATTER WHAT. I knew straight away that it wasn't going to be easy. I love this person wholeheartedly, but already in this short period there have been some ups and downs, a real rollercoaster and that's not going to stop. However some of the lessons I have learnt through their life and in walking life with them - a tenacity for God, what it is to hunger for Him, what real joy is and how it can only come from God. That He is our only hope and strength, to really think for myself, to consider others more, to consider other viewpoints, to truly understand the need for God in each of our lives in a way more real than ever before, and that's only part of it.
People have their limits. I'd never come across someone's before. I hadn't before felt the need to try to understand someone at that level. Another new experience. It was harder than I expected. Confusion in not understanding, a struggle with wanting to understand, respecting boundaries, hope that ground can be recovered - that I've not gone too far, regret for pain caused, asking for forgiveness.
It also brought up the question about what my limits are and where they are to be found. In this last month they have been pushed as much as they have up to this point and when approached in a caring matter by someone whom I trust, it appears those gates are flimsy indeed. I am yet to discover whether that is bad or good. It is slightly daunting to have seen another's barriers and to realise what has caused them to be so. Dare I wonder what God has in store for me in the future? James 1:2-4 "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." Does the lack of real trials in my life mean I am immature and incomplete, and/or is it an indicator that those trials are yet to come?
It is a joy, a struggle, a privilege and a journey, a journey that God has made clear is not to end. God doesn't give up on people, therefore I won't give up on you either, as long as He gives me the strength and love to continue.
Psalm 139
1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.
5 You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.
19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God!
Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!
20 They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD,
and abhor those who rise up against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
