Editor's note: Enjoy today's devotion from The Little Big Life by Kristen Welch.
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You are not what you do. You are not what you have. You are not what people say about you. You are the beloved of God. ~ Henri Nouwen
Oh, how I love these words of Jesus in Mark 6:31 (WE):
Come away with Me. Let us go alone to a quiet place and rest for a while.
Who is this God, this maker of the universe who, from the creation of time, set into motion a rhythm that would allow us to come to Him for everything we need? Salvation, healing, comfort, joy, purpose, love—and rest as well because He knew we would often grow weary. Even the psalmist asks,
When I look at Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You care for him? — Psalm 8:3–4
God is mindful of us because God is love and love is God.
Trying to explain Him is like trying to capture the ocean in a cup. He is infinite, indescribable. Yet because of his unchanging character, we can trust these truths about God and his great love as revealed in the Bible:
God’s love is steadfast. The Hebrew word hesed, often translated “steadfast love,” means love will not let go, as in Lamentations 3:22:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
God’s constant love will not leave you. It is steady and will hold you steady.
God’s love is unconditional. No matter where we go or what we do, it finds us. In 1 Corinthians 13:7–8, Paul tells us,
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
God’s love is transformative. It heals us, changes us, forms us.
- His love completes us.
God’s transformative love brings new life (Ephesians 2:4–5), empowers believers to love others (1 John 4:7–12), and changes our heart through a renewed mind and relationship with Christ (Romans 12:2) leading to worship, obedience, and enduring faith.
God’s love is personal. God sent His own Son, a part of Himself, to die for us. It cost God to love us. He paid the highest price to seek us, find us, and bring us home. Revelation 2:17 says,
I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.
The overcomer is being referred to here in intimate relationship with God. We read later in Revelation 3:12,
I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God.
This suggests that God has a special name for every believer, tied to His plan and purpose, which will be understood fully one day in His presence.
God’s love is intimate. Isaiah 40:11 beautifully describes the powerful nature of God and His heart for us:
He will tend His flock like a shepherd;
He will gather the lambs in His arms;
He will carry them in His bosom,
and gently lead those that are with young.
This is our God, a tender shepherd who lovingly cares for His sheep. God is also close enough to capture our tears (Psalm 56:8). Psalm 3:3 describes God as a shield about us, our glory, the lifter of our heads. It tells of how He sustains us and comes and sits with us. Isaiah 40:29–31 says,
He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might He increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.
God is vast, unending, uncontainable, infinite. God created time and space and everything in between. God spoke billions of galaxies, planets, and stars into existence—a universe so vast that it would take a fathomless number of years to get to the first star in our solar system! Isaiah 40:28 declares,
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
His understanding is unsearchable.
We get to pray to the God who created it all. This is our God, the Savior who said, “Come away with Me.” Accepting this invitation might require course correction or a U-turn. It could mean radical obedience, total surrender, or a letting go. For an entire year, in the middle of the noise and chaos of burden-bearing, I heard Jesus whisper to my soul, Come away with Me. I saw the words in everything I read, and heard them in every conversation, even in the dead of night. But before I could accept the invitation to come away with him, to sit and eat with him, to find rest, I had to make room at my messy table and in my cluttered heart. I had to stop. Stopping creates space for God in our lives. Stopping is, after all, what we’ve really been talking about all through part 1 of this book:
- Stopping to admit we are doing over being.
- Stopping to ask, “Am I burning out?”
- Stopping the noise, chaos, and busyness so we can step into slow, abiding love.
- Stopping so we can start again.
If you want to get rid of your troubles, don’t meditate on them nor deny them. Quiet your heart. Stop and acknowledge God. It’s His own invitation:
Be still, and know that I am God. — Psalm 46:10
Contemplate His glory, His nature, His being. When you do, everything will become ordered, and you will be drawn to worship.
Excerpted with permission from The Little Big Life by Kristen Welch, copyright Kristen Welch.
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Your Turn
Are you weary today? Are your troubles taking up all of your mental space? Hear the Lord saying to you, Come away with Me. Just be with Him and worship Him. ~ Devotionals Daily