Love is here…so stop trying so hard.

I heard a very familiar song this morning as I woke up to another beautiful day here in San Blas Cape. That song was “Love is Here” by Tenth Avenue North. Often times in my walk with God I get caught up in the details of life. I get caught up in the tidbits. I get caught up in the worries, in the stress, and in whatever else might weigh a person down in a hectic graduate school schedule. I take life too seriously when sometimes all you can do is put your toes in the sand and see as far as the eye can reach into that abyss of nothingness we call the ocean. The vastness of God becomes evident. The whisper of a wind upon this chilly day brings a reminder to me that His Love is definitely here in this place, in this minute, and perhaps stretching into the existence of this blog. My very nature is to rush, to do as many things as possible in the waking hours of a normal school day, and in some regards making myself miserable as I do this wonderful cyclical measure of insignificant things. America (yes, our society) seems to cultivate this very perpetuation of a routine to do more, to have more, and to consume more. I honestly believe the only thing we need more of is God’s Love. Yesterday I was able to spend some time getting exercise with a new friend jogging on the beach, and that time was memorable. I spoke of what was bothering me, and he basically said this simple phrase, “You got to stop thinking about that junk.” Our junk usually in the form of our own demons and self-destructive thoughts drags a person down to depths that sometimes feel incredibly, extremely insurmountable. Now while I am nowhere near such depths at this point in my life, I do get caught up in the previously mentioned things. If I sought comfort in the Love of God, the peace, the comfort, and the lifted weight He carries, all these fruits of the Spirit would soon follow shortly in the Presence of my Sheppard. As we seek Him earnestly, He gladly comes as we ask Him to. We seek things that are not lasting, things that are temporary, things that mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. We try to force aspects of our life into action when God is supposed take care of those aspects to some regard. It will work out if we do not try so hard. It is amazing when I don’t try so hard how God freely gives the desires of my heart. It is like they literally fall into my lap. Then, on the opposite side of things, when I try to do things on my own free will, things fall apart as I try harder and harder to hold those things together with the force of control. Those are the moments when God just wants you to give up (not in the sense of quitting but rather spiritual control) and give to Him in faith whatever may truly be at the heart of the matter. You may find when you let go of that junk, you become free. The shackles fall off. We no longer become slaves to the junk of society. We find and experience hope in the peace in the fact that His Love is indeed right here. We come to realization that it has been, and it always will be….here.