O Love That Would Not Let Me Go

Truth is I've never been the kind who likes being pinned down. I didn't care much for wrestling in Jr. High (it was a mandatory physical discipline in P.E. back in my day). While I really didn't much like the thought of a guy in tights being that close to me, I really didn't like the thought of somebody laying on top of me and pinning me to the floor against my will. I remember my matches didn't last too long because I just didn't like being all tied down. I'd rather lose the match than get all tangled up for a couple minutes that felt like an eternity!

I guess some might suggest I'm a bit of a "free spirit." I've always gravitated to less structured things. Growing up I was encouraged to play "legitimate" music in bands and orchestra (clarinet mostly), but I really loved the guitar and gravitated toward blues and jazz music because of the freedom of improvisation and the woeful expressions of those genres.

Solitary sports (other than wrestling, no doubt) have tended to draw my interest. Surfing I've enjoyed since I was a little buddy. I loved just being in a "soul session" dropping into wave after wave alone, even in a line-up with a hundred other people, just being in the water on the back of a board is an amazing experience. The solitude of the mighty ocean, the power of a wave and the rush of motion is an incredible joy that is difficult to fashion into words.

Now living so far from the ocean, I find my "soul sessions" out on the back of a motorcycle or on the driving range hitting golf balls. Just me alone... and the rush of instant speed gratification awaiting each twist of the throttle or the contrasting quiet click of a well hit (and sometimes not-so-well-hit) ball. There is a serenity to both of these contexts, decibels notwithstanding.

Given a wardrobe of choice... I'm less comfortable in the constriction of a necktie and will choose a T-shirt and jeans on most occasions. One of my most favorite combinations is a sweatshirt, shorts and flipflops... ahh, the perfect uniform for a "sixty-something" degree day!

So as I see it, life is best lived untied, untucked and unconstricted. But as comfortable as that may be for me in many circumstances in my life, it isn't the way I've come to know the love of God. There is something about God's love that is inescapable but is not threatening to freedom.

Recently I reacquainted myself with an old hymn from the mid-19th century that speaks of a "love that would not let me go." It is a poetic lyric speaking of the everlasting quality of God's infinite love.

O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
that in thine ocean depths
its flow may richer, fuller be.

To be in the "ocean's depth" of God's love is to surrender completely to it. Not to wrestle away from it, but to "rest my weary soul" in God's love. God's love is a profoundly captivating place of spiritual and emotional residence. To return the very life God has given as a "re-gifting" of what He has already freely given to me seems scarcely proportionate, yet completely appropriate an expression of thanks for a love that graciously "pins me to the floor."

There have been occaisions in my life when I've tried to wiggle out from under "a love that would not let me go" and I've found that is not a blessed place at all. Realizing I can never get out from under His mighty love, I choose now merely to surrender, to quit resisting it, and to find comfort in its Divine constriction so as to find His love in me "richer and fuller be."

"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,
may have power, together with all the saints,
to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,
and to know this love that surpasses knowledge --
that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."
Eph. 3:17b-19

How do you feel about God's love that will never let you go?