“I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.” Ephesians. 3:16-19
For weeks I watched as the earth dried and cracked. Soil houses seed, as seed makes its home and bears life the cycle was struggling without water. In order for life to grow, rain must fall and what’s living takes a drinking fill and responds in kind. When the very source of nourishing rain is cut off….life withers, flails and dies. As I watched rainless days stretch into rainless weeks and then months, I began to wonder when life would again get to drink. I prayed, we watched and waited, and prayed some more. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, drops and plops began to fall and vanish. Rain has got a lot of work to do when it’s been absent for months at a time. We continued to pray and then storms brewed, and blew and at last, the earth drank her fill. I didn’t realize how much something in me needed to see the green again, the evidence of life. The rain gave us permission to watch land and sky flourish….and when it did something parched in me drank its own sigh of relief. When we’re desperate, thirsty and anguished something intrinsic in us knows the pang is seeking release. The evidence of a drought was visible through the crevices and cracks of dried land, and equally evident when rain fell, life began to thrive again.
Why do we think our lives are any different? We are very much the same. In order to flourish, our hearts need to be saturated and watered with unconditional love.
There’s no where else we can flourish, and no other ‘love’ will do. Ephesians 3 isn’t a condemning mandate, it’s a love sonnet calling us to drink our fill of the greatest love there is. We’re called to experience something we can’t even fully understand, and simultaneously have the power to understand it. There’s something extraordinary when the right things are put in the right place that everything else seems to fall in line. Jesus should be at home in our hearts. Our roots are meant to be strong in the love of God. We were designed to know how all-encompassing the love of God is…even though it is wonderfully beyond our comprehension.
Without that love, our soil begins to wither, flail and die. We were meant to know how deeply we are loved, and anything less parches our soil. Truth is, life happens doesn’t it? We become more about to-do lists, and productivity than we do about walking in this truth. So if we are going to remember, then we need to water our soil.
We’re hopeless on our own. We need to come back to the truth of God’s word and we pray:
“What a wonderful promise your word gives us Lord, thank you for it. Would you teach me the truth to live from Ephesians 3? Would you strengthen me by your Spirit? Jesus would you make your home in me? And God, would you give me the power to understand how wide, long, high and deep your love is for me? Teach me to understand your wonderful and incomprehensible love. My heart needs watering, help me look to you, and you alone, for the extravagant love I need. In Jesus name, Amen.”
We lay down our will, our way, our busyness and our preferences and we watch, wait and pray for this passage to bear fruit in the soil of our lives. The to-do lists will take care of themselves. The busyness will pale in the light of eternity. And the pressure we often succumb to, will lose its power in the light of his goodness. Make time to water your soil today friend, your relationship with Jesus is worth it.
You’re wildly loved and your heart needs to know it!
With so much love,
Joy