CRY ME A RIVER…. 

We have explored love recently. Love that never fails and is eternal and that human love falls short of the complete love that God pours out. Love that is the very nature of God who is love which means that as Judge, his judgment is also an act of love.

Not quite the emotion we experience and give as human love.

So is it ok to talk of God’s love in an emotional way?

Absolutely!

God’s love can be experienced as well as known.

My own Alpha experience, of coming to faith, is similar to others you might hear. I was a sceptic who went on an Alpha course but found my questions were not being addressed let alone answered and I gave up after about 3 sessions. I joined another course and gelled with the group much more and finished the regular weekly sessions finding my position shifting slightly but still an unbeliever.

About six months later I was approached to go on the Alpha away day that I had missed on the previous course. I reluctantly went, enjoyed the day but still had no feeling that God was real let alone that I wanted to give my life to him.

The next day, Sunday evening, I was in church and started to sing a song about the power of God’s love. Suddenly I felt a presence, a tangible feeling like being hugged gently and tenderly. I had a big grin on my face and beads of sweat on my brow. As we sang about being surrounded by love and lifted up like an eagle I felt …. well, loved.

In a way that I had never experienced before.

That was over 20 years ago. Just a couple of years ago I was leading an event for some church leaders that included a time of worship which someone else was organising.

I would usually lead the session but on this occasion, I asked one of my colleagues to instead, I didn’t know why I felt compelled to do so. Lo and behold, that song came on and I had a memory and an experience of those waves of love hit me and I was a blubbering mess at the back of the room! I couldn’t have led anything!!

Faith can feel that its just about belief in and accession to a set of statements of intellectual knowledge. God is creator. Jesus is saviour. Holy Spirit is guide. There is something after this life. Safer to agree these statements than not.

Belief can be cold and factual and unemotional. And on one level Jesus’ response to the disciples’ question “What are the works of God” was simply to “believe in the one the father sent” (Joh 6:29). And Paul could tell the Roman church to say with your mouth and believe in your heart to be saved.
It would seem that intellectual assent is enough.

But it is also true that the Holy Spirit is a person. The very living presence of God. And we can have a relationship with a person. We can experience love from and give love to that person.

God is not just an idea.

God’s love is not just a concept.

Its an emotion we can experience.

Cry me a river is a bitter song with a bitter lyric of a broken relationship where someone has been let down by their lover and the hurt is still manifest. The tears over God can only ever be ones of joy and thankfulness. Tears over the true God. Because he is faithful, true and never lets anyone down.

Tears for God are more often than not because we cannot comprehend the depth of his love.

God self identifies in one place in the bible – Exodus 34:6-7

“The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, ⁷ maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”

He is Lord.

He is compassionate and gracious.

He is slow to anger.

He abounds in love.

He abounds in faithfulness.

He maintains love to thousands (read all people).

He forgives wickedness, rebellion and sin.

His love abounds - patient, kind, no envy, boasting or pride, honours others, selfless, forgets wrongs, rejoices with the truth, always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres, never fails – and is maintained to all.

To know these things. To experience these things. Its emotional.

And sometimes it can catch us unawares, and tears might fall.

And that’s ok.

Doug