Wide and Long and High and Deep

“…to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” ~ Ephesians 3:18-19

I’ve been feeling overwhelmed.  Like most others have felt at one time or another (or more often than that), I’ve been consistently feeling stretched in every direction, doing too many things to be doing any of them well.  I don’t like that feeling.  Just as I was going into the weekend when I had planned to “catch up on everything,” I got sick.  I woke up knowing that I wasn’t going to be able to muster the strength to do much more than sleep. That’s when the questions began to swirl and the anxiety set in.  Who will teach my class?  How will I meet the tax deadline for my clients?  Who is going to do all of the things?

That day turned out much as I expected.  I slept a lot and did little else but feel like I was falling further and further behind.  The next morning I woke up with the words of the Lord in my head. I know they were His words because they were so opposite to my natural way of thinking and there was a peace within me as I heard the words over and over.  “I can do nothing without You. I have nothing without You. I am nothing without You.”  Those words repeated as I lay in bed and I closed my eyes in an effort to hang onto them. I wanted to stop time and stay in that moment of peace, fully aware that nothing I do, nothing I have, nothing I am is mine without my Heavenly Father.

I am notoriously bad at surrendering to Him, but in that moment I was overwhelmed in a whole different way.  Not with obligations and worry, but instead with love and the knowledge that my Jesus lived and died and lives eternally to set me free of the earthly bonds that I typically surrender to.  He wants that peace for me even more than I want it for myself.  That’s the overwhelming love of Christ.