I was walking the dog this morning, thinking about hurricane Florence and its widespread effects, how there's flooding expected even in east Tennessee, hundreds of miles from the coast, because of ALL THE RAIN. Here we had an inch of rain, but parts of North Carolina far from us have had more than 30 inches of rain, and river water doesn't stay where it falls. When a couple feet of rain falls, places that got a couple inches are still affected.
As I was walking and thinking, with my playlist on shuffle, "randomly" one of the songs out of hundreds in my long dog-walking playlist started, a song referenced by Pastor Harrold yesterday in service: He is jealous for me, Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree, Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy. When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory, And I realize just how beautiful You are, And how great Your affections are for me.
And oh, how He loves us oh, Oh, how He loves us, How He loves us all He loves us, Oh, how He loves us, Oh, how He loves us, Oh, how He loves.
And we are His portion and He is our prize, Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes, If His grace is an ocean, we're all sinking. And heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss, And my heart turns violently inside of my chest, I don't have time to maintain these regrets, When I think about, the way That He loves us, Oh, how He loves us, Oh, how He loves us, Oh, how He loves. David Crowder Band, "How He Loves"
LOVES LIKE A HURRICANE.
This song stopped me in my tracks, you all. Sometimes I'm kind of dense and God has to repeat things, He has a way of making things obvious. With my mind already full of overwhelming images from hurricane coverage by the media, He said, "That's how I love you. Not in inches, but in record-setting amounts. Amounts that exceed your measuring equipment, higher than your gauges. Love that has influence far from where it lands."
He also showed me this...part of His glory is His love for us. We ask for Him to show us His glory, for His glory to fall on us. And in many ways, He has shown us. His Love and His glory continue to fall on us in hurricane proportions. Do we see it?