God's Love"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He restoreth my soul." Psalm 23:2-3Have you ever really tried to comprehend God's love for you? Have you everreally, really experienced it so that it makes you weep with joy?There was a time in my life when I would sit still and pray every morning bysimply asking, "God, what do you want me to know, today?" Many, many mornings Iwould simply feel God's love come over me. Most of all, God wanted me tounderstand that I was loved.Here's a great example of that love, which I wrote about in my book, How StrongWomen Pray.In 1955 Maya Angelou, who would eventually become a poet, educator, historian,author, actress, playwright, civil-rights activist, producer and director, wasin a vocal class with Frederick Wilkerson reading a passage out loud to thegroup assembled there.She had been a dancer all her life and would later become famous as the authorof I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and the inaugural Poet for the United Statesin 1993. But at this point she was still very young and was taking vocal lessonsto enhance her career as a dancer.Wilkerson called himself a "vocal technician." He worked with Roberta Flack andmany famous opera singers. Maya Angelou was friends with "Wilkie" and he renteda room in her house. Once a month, he gathered his students together to readaloud.Dr. Angelou was reading along and came to, "God loves me.""Read that again," said Wilkie. "God loves me," she said."Read it again." he said to her. And she began to feel really, really tense. Sheand Wilkie were the only black people there. She was young and he had otherstudents who were serious singers, and they were all white and all older. Shefelt he was making her look foolish in her own house in front of thesesophisticated whites.He said, "Read it again. Read it again."Finally she shouted it out defiantly, "GOD...LOVES...ME!"Dr. Angelou told me about how she felt in that moment:"I heard Him. In that instant in my life I knew that I was a child of God...andknowing it then, I know it all the time fresh. Just saying it makes me thrill,in the classic sense. I mean, my body---Wheeew!"At that moment, I had to leave the room. I started weeping...with the knowledgeof it. And I could do it again right now. That which made the seas andmountains, made stars and moons, and goldfish...That loves me?!!"It was a freedom...a relief...a license to try to do all the good in the world.If That loves me then I can do anything good. You see?"If you have not felt, deeply felt, the love of God (or even if you have) praythis prayer with me:God, I ask You to open my heart, my eyes and my mind, that I may trulyexperience Your love and let that change the way I live my life. Understandinghow much You love me would help me to have unlimited love for myself, for othersand for the world we live in. Let me know Your love, and be Your love in theworld.
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