Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Amy Carmichael on Divine Love

Amy Carmichael was an Irish missionary to India in the early 20th century. She has also been an ink-and-paper mentor to me ever since my first introduction to her through a recording of an Elisabeth Elliot message. Lately I have been slowly rereading her book If, a meditation on Calvary love. The passage below proved ineffably comforting and encouraging to me; I pray God blesses you through it, too.
No vision of the night can show, no word declare, with what longings of love Divine Love waits till the heart, all weary and sick of itself, turns to its Lord and says, "Take full possession." There is no need to plead that the love of God shall fill our heart as though He were unwilling to fill us; He is willing as light is willing to flood a room that is opened to its brightness; willing as water is willing to flow into an emptied channel. Love is pressing round us on all sides like air. Cease to resist, adn instantly love takes possession. As the 15th century poem Quia amore langues says, 
Long and love though never so high, 
My love is more than thine may be. 
More, far more. For as His abundance of pardon passes our power to tell it, so does His abundance of love: it is as far as the east is from the west, high as the heaven is above the earth. But words fail. Love soars above them all.
To look at ourselves leads to despair. Thank God, the Blood cleanseth.
Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Also through Him, we have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also rejoice in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. This hope does not disappoint, because God's love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us (Romans 5:1-5, HCSB).


Dear Crumble, your empty places are opportunities to know more of God's love. May your hearts unfold and open to a fuller inpouring of divine love today.

Considering love with the folks at A Holy Experience today...