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Enjoying God

This quote from Eugene Peterson's book, A Long Obedience, stirred my heart! "God is a personal reality to be enjoyed. We are so created and so redeemed that we are capable of enjoying Him. All the movements of discipleship arrive at a place where joy is experienced. Every step of assent toward God develops the capacity to enjoy. Not only is there, increasingly, more to be enjoyed, there is steadily the acquired ability to enjoy it. Best of all, we don't have to wait until we get to the end of the road before we enjoy what is at the end of the road."

The key to enjoying God and what is at the "end of the road," is knowing that He loves us above all else. When we are secure in that knowledge and realize He is not at all like the biased inspector with the power to shut down our business, the banker with an agenda to call in our loan on a whim, the co-worker that speaks well of us to our face but then trashes us behind our back, the boss who threatens to fire us if we miss a sale . . . No! He is the One who loves us unconditionally and is on our side at all times, even when we are not perfect.

Here are some LOVE facts from God's perspective:

• Romans 8:35, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?"
• Romans 8:39, "Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
• Ephesians 2:4, 5, 7, "But God - so rich is He in His mercy! Because of and in order to satisfy the great and wonderful and intense love with which He loved us, even when we were dead (slain) by [our own] shortcomings and trespasses, He made us alive together in fellowship and in union with Christ; [He gave us the very life of Christ Himself, the same new life with which He quickened Him, for] it is by grace (His favor and mercy which you did not deserve) that you are saved (delivered from judgment and made partakers of Christ's salvation). He did this that He might clearly demonstrate through the ages to come the immeasurable (limitless, surpassing) riches of His free grace (His unmerited favor) in [His] kindness and goodness of heart toward us in Christ Jesus."

Ellene Meece lives in Meeker, Colorado and works with her husband in their natural resource company while running her own online store, Grandma's Treasures Online. Currently, she oversees the marketing for the FMIN Workplace Leaders Network.

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