Cannot Hide My Love

Enter the Worship Circle sings a song called "I Cannot Hide My Love," describing overwhelming love in response to the touch of God. A couple of months ago I drove up to this mountain called "The Chief," to hike it with my friend Alysia. On the way we listened to that song as the car wound through the road between mountains and sea, and I was totally overwhelmed at the beauty of the view, the elegance and grace of sky and summit and sea. As I reacted to the wonder of creation, Alysia said, "He can't hide His love."

Alysia's statement has been on my mind a lot since that drive. I look up to the mountains, look into the Word, and it prompts me to thank Him. When I say that I cannot hide my love, I hear a divine, "Me neither."

Several times over the last few days, God's inability to hide His love has struck me deeply. A few days ago I read the story of the widow of Nain in Luke 7:11-17. Jesus and His disciples headed out to Nain, only to run into a funeral procession. A widow's only son had died, and a great crowd was walking out with her to bury him. The Bible says, "And seeing her, the Lord hurt all the way to the guts over her and said to her, 'Don't cry!' And coming He touched the bier, and those carrying it stood still, and He said, 'Young man, I say to you, be raised!' And the young man sat up and began to speak, and He gave him to his mother" (13-15). He couldn't help it, couldn't hide His love.

On Saturday at the conference one of the speakers was talking about how God made a way for us to enter His presence by tearing the veil between us--the very body of Jesus (Hebrews 10:20)--and how He ripped the veil at the Temple from top to bottom. Such is the love of God that He has never been able to abide separation. When Adam and Eve broke fellowship with Him in the Garden, He came looking for them. When Cain hated his brother and became angry at God, God came looking for him. When he killed Abel, God came looking for him. When Abraham was in an idolatrous family, God came looking for him. When he ran away to Egypt during the time of famine in the land of promise, and when he gave his wife away for his own security, God came looking for him. When Israel turned from God to idols, God came looking for them. When David committed adultery, killed a man to steal his wife, and hid away in his scheming and sin, God came looking for him. When we were dead in our trespasses and sins, God came looking for us. He took on our humanity, took on our shame, took on our separation and death, and came looking for us. He couldn't hide His love. He showed up in skin because He couldn't hide His love. He died because He couldn't hide His love. He rose again because He couldn't hide His love, came and ate with His disciples because He couldn't hide His love.

When God walked the earth, there was something about Him that drew people to Him. In Luke 7:36-50, a woman comes to Him while He's eating dinner at a prominent religious figure's house, and she stands at His feet, looking at Him and crying until His feet are covered with tears. She washes His feet with her tears and dries them with her hair, kisses them, and covers them with perfume. This freaks the Pharisee out. Not only is she flagrantly breaking cultural boundaries, but she is a sinful woman, marked by a bad reputation, and being associated with her is like committing social suicide (Thank you, Mean Girls). Jesus looks at her and maintains eye contact while He rebukes the religious man, then dismisses her with love and forgiveness. I think that God's love has always brought real relief and comfort and value to the broken and has always made the religious deeply uncomfortable. Religious fervor and focus are often a mask designed to hide a feverish, obsessive attempt to control and manipulate one's life, the lives of others, and God Himself. What freaked the Pharisees out was that they could not control Jesus, could not stop His loving people, could not crush Him into their mold of an acceptable religious figure, and they could not control people's response to Him. His love was not tame in any way. It went past cultural boundaries, invited the touch of the desperate and diseased, and broke the bonds of death. It could not be hidden, quenched, manipulated, or directed in any way.

As a religious person, it is taking me a long time to learn to understand the love of God. I'm not there yet. But I am so glad He can't hide it. I'm glad it's past my efforts to manipulate it. I am glad it is wild and untameable.

Thanks

• I am so thankful for the love of God. I am thankful that He couldn't help but express it, that His love blasts out across the landscape at me every day.
• I am thankful for God's constant movement in my life, even when I can't see it on the surface. I am thankful that He sees me where I am and keeps me from falling. I am thankful that He is my Shepherd.
• I am thankful for the timing of God and the way He engineers circumstances for His glory.

Prayer Requests

• Please pray for wisdom and boldness for me to share the good news without compromising the truth. Pray for sensitivity to people alongside a firm grasp of what is most important.
• Please pray for wisdom about the future. Pray that the true cry of my heart would be, "Not my will but Yours."
• Please pray for protection during the lonely times as winter descends and holidays approach.
• Please pray for divine appointments, for open doors to share the good news, open hearts to receive it, and open windows of heaven to bless the work.
• Please continue to pray for provision for the Centre. We have been late in paying the rent over the past couple of months, and it's not a good testimony. Please pray that God would put it on people's hearts to give.

Thank you so, so much for praying for me.
-Jennifer