How Deep, How High, How Long, How Wide

It had been a very busy week and weekend with a lot of stressors rearing their ugly heads. And to top it off, I had failed. Failed miserably. All day Saturday the guilt and the misery that comes with that, continually tried to knock me out everytime I thought of the situation. It would come at me with a one- two punch and I let it. I put down my hands and I let it beat me down until, by Sunday, I was feeling like a mega-failure in the parenting department. Again. And with that, far from God. I so needed to be renewed in faith & confidence.

But my Father God, knowing exactly what I needed to hear, blest me with the worship team singing this chorus during the worship.

Your Love is Deep
Your Love is High
Your Love is Long
Your Love is Wide

Who shall separate us
Who shall separate us from Your love
Nothing can separate us
Nothing can separate us from your love*

As I stood there and just let the voices of the worship team and the congregation wash over me with the words of the song, I realized this was a gift of God’s renewal for me. Renewal is available for me exactly because God’s love is deeper, it is higher, it is longer and it is wider than any of my failures. Any of my shortcomings. Any of my sins. His grace goes deeper than anything my finite mind can imagine. He is offering it, through the the work Jesus had done on the cross, that I might receive forgiveness and be renewed and start again.

“Indeed I have loved you with an eternal love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.”
Jeremiah 31:3

God draws us back to renew us in Him, not by beating and berating us for what we’ve done wrong, but with grace and a love that is fathomless.

Romans 8:34 tells us that Jesus is at the right hand of God interceding for us. Then Paul asks in verse 35 who can then separate us from the love of Christ? And in verse 38 he answers his own question:

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demon, neither the present for the future, nor any powers, neither height not depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Have you, like me, messed up this week? Are you beating yourself up about it and feel far from God because of it, like I was? I encourage you to let these scriptures and the words of the song minister to you, and let them allow you to let God’s loving kindness draw you back unto Himself. Because of Jesus, nothing can separate you from the love of God!

*song lyrics by By: Dan Collins, Jami Smith, Susanne Bussey
©2001 Integrity’s Hosanna! Music
CCLI #803945