A Love That Meets You in the Lonely Places - Girlfriends in God - August 3, 2017

August 3, 2017
A Love That Meets You In The Lonely Places
Gwen Smith

Today’s Truth

Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. (Psalm 90:14, NIV)

Friend to Friend

I’m needy when it comes to love. Remember that game Hungry Hungry Hippos? Well, I’m pretty much Hungry Hungry Gwenno. (Don’t remember that game? Google it and then buy it for your four-year-old nephew, neighbor, or grandkid. You’ll thank me.)

It seems our old friend Moses was a bit of a hungry hippo too. In Psalm 90 he asked God to fill him and God’s people full of love: “Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days” (v. 14). Love this! Note that Moses connected the love of God with a satisfaction that put a song in his heart and a skip in his step.

Yes. I want this too. So my prayer each morning becomes, Satisfy me with Your love today, Lord. Fill me with Your joy and gladness, and lead my actions to sing of You.

As I pray this, God’s companionship meets my loneliness.

His grace overwhelms my grump.

His joy trumps my anger.

His provision satisfies my need.

David recognized that he needed God’s all-satisfying love too. He celebrated it ... was desperate for it ... was responsive to it. Look at what he penned in the familiar words of Psalm 63:

You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. (vv. 1–5)

I see my own heart reflected in David’s words and realize that when I’m hankering for a hunk of love, my longings are best met in the arms of my Lord. His is the love of power and glory. His love is “better than life.” And, like David, I choose to respond to His love with worship. My lips will glorify Him. I will lift up my hands. I will praise the all-worthy One. In doing so, my soul is secure. Satisfied.

Ultimately I experience the satisfaction of God’s love through Jesus. God’s perfect love compelled Him to sacrifice His Son to bridge the chasm of death between His holiness and my humanness. His is the love that holds, the love that heals, the love that refines, the love that calls my waywardness back to purity with kindness, the love that is always with me, that rejoices over me with singing and takes “great delight” in me (Zeph. 3:17).

This sacred, scarlet love of Jesus is the only water that can quench the desperate longings of my thirsty soul. If I want all the love God has for me, my feeble hands must reach for the ones that were pierced for my transgressions.

Every day.

When the sun shines.

When the storm screams.

I find God’s love when I reach out to Jesus.

His is the only love that satisfies.

Let’s Pray

Dear Lord, You are perfect love ... and all that my soul longs for. When I’m dizzy with discontent, please remind me that Yours is the love that satisfies.

In Jesus’ Name,

Amen.

Now It’s Your Turn

Read Psalm 86:15. What five words or phrases are used to describe God in this verse? How similar or different are these from the way you perceive God right now? Write a responsive prayer in your journal or on the wall of my blog.

More from the Girlfriends

Today’s message is an excerpt from Gwen Smith’s book,I Want It ALL.

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