We dont have to pretend to have gods love

​I had a phone conversation with a friend yesterday. We don't talk often. When we do, though, when those conversations are over, I always feel a sense of peace.

I think it's because while we're talking, it doesn't feel like work. I'm not thinking of the right things to say. I'm not trying to make her think or feel a certain way about me. There's a certain energy - a life maybe - that comes from the voice that flows completely unrestricted by the walls of pretending.

When I'm done talking to her, I always feel loved. And the thing is, I don't feel loved by her - as much as I'm sure I am - I just feel loved. It's a love I don't feel compelled to analyze, but simply absorb.

And I know that love - that is God's love.

I'm hearing these words to the Cory Asbury song Canyons:

And I've scaled all the highest of mountains
And I've stood at the edge of their peaks
But I still couldn't see to the edge of
Your love for me

And I've walked on the wildest of waters
And I've sunk to the depths of the sea
But I still couldn't fathom the depths of
Your love for me

That is God's love. It's a love we can't see. It's one we can't fathom.

But that can often leave us feeling more exhausted than loved. Because we ARE looking for love we can see - and we ARE looking for love we can fathom - we are climbing for it and striving for it and pretending for it.

After getting off the phone with my friend, I always wonder for a bit - how does she do that? How does she make God's love seem so truly present in my life without ever once offering a cliché like "God loves you."

I wonder that because I'd like to be someone who can truly feel God's presence like that all the time. And maybe more than that, I'd like to be someone who can make God's presence be that truly felt in someone else's life all the time.

The only answer I ever come up with is grace.

This is a friend who is a long way from being God - she'd be the first to tell you that - but many times when I'm done talking to her I feel like I just talked to God. Because in a conversation where there could have been judgment there was none. In conversations that often require understanding and even from time to time forgiveness - it's always there. And when my life needs a little direction - and maybe even re-direction - that direction comes with a nudge and not a scream or a threat.

God's love is so hard for us to get - and feel - and fathom - because we are so used to love being something that's costly in our lives. We are so used to having to work for love, that God's love, which isn't offered in response to effort, can get lost in all of our climbing and striving and pretending.

We are each other's reminder of that - the reminder that you don't have to work so hard for love.

We are each other's reminder that God's love is present. And that in our pretending to one another in the name of love, we are missing out on the most authentic love of all.

We are each other's reminder that in a crazy world where people are running all over one another looking for love - love is found in the stopping. It's found in meeting each other where we are. It's found in the gentle nudges and not the screams.

It's found in friends.