Wide to Deep

"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fulness of God."  Ephesians 3:18 & 19

I looked out over the ocean from the top open deck of a cruise ship this past January in the Gulf of Mexico.  The photo above is the vision I beheld as the words "wide and long and high and deep" played over and over in my mind like one of those never ending songs sung in round.  I thought, How good God is!  Sunbeams were penetrating my pores, tingling and warming my body even as the balmy breeze blew in an attempt to cool the shimmering beads of sweat that were just beginning to form.  Friends on either side of me.  Reggae music lilting in the background.  I had a glimpse of the "wide and long and high and deep!"  This was an outpouring of God's love - a pinnacle moment. 

One year previous, almost to the very week that I was basking in the Gulf of Mexico, I was instead laying on a stretcher in the operating room having a cancerous tumor removed, in the center of the Hospital District in Boston.  Upon awakening, I was in pain; cut open from the belly button down about six inches, I found myself stitched and bandaged with wires and tubes coming from everywhere.  I was weak and sick and feeling like death warmed over.  Yet, the surgery I had was successful and I was alive.  I thought, How good God is!  This was an outpouring of God's love too - a pinnacle moment as well.

How could I feel the fulness of God in such extremes? I could feel it and know it because I had been given power to grasp by rooting myself in faith, believing  - "To grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ."  Friend, no matter if you are at the lowest of your lows or the highest of your highs, Jesus is able to reach you and fill you with the fullness of His love.  This type of love surpasses knowledge; it surpasses reasonableness & understanding.  Yet, I believe it is this fulness of God's love that causes me to both wonder at and know there is always a song of HOPE to sing.  Hope in the moment and Hope for what will come but hasn't yet.  God sparkled in my successful surgery and He sparkled in my basking in the sunshine on the top open deck of a cruise ship.  Each moment was a gift.  There is no place that He cannot reach in your life and in your heart.  Be "rooted and established", friend.  Read God's Word and claim it.  Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, and be "filled to the measure of all the fulness of God."