Help Me Know Your Love, Lord

HALF of life over, a wasted half in so many ways, other than all the good wrought (the creation and curation of three fine children, among other things), and the last half beckons.

What has been learnt is this. The first half there was no ardent chasing of God, and yet blessing was encountered in the hidden mode of hell on earth — a ‘blessing’ of a life lived independent from God (which I know now was a fabrication of a blessing). The second half is a polar opposite. It’s chasing God, for the necessity of God, for the necessity of the spiritual life, so a life of blessing can be maintained. I am a dependent person nowadays.

I cannot tell you how different life is, in contrasting the first half with the second half. In the manner of moments, the first half is now still three times as long as the present half. I could only hope to live a further twenty-four year. And still I’ve promised my wife another fifty, plus!

As I traipse this land of physical wonder, I cannot help feel I’m far from home apart from all the love I experience.

I so hunger to know the Lord, and yet I do. In the sweet essences of a woman’s perfume, or in a compelling winter’s breeze, or in the calamity of noises all about me, or in the eternal voice of my wife as she dreams at night. God’s love is all about.

Yet, help me, Father, and be with me continually, Holy Spirit, as I thank you for the Son. As I live this life intrepidly, risking for love, surrendering my needs to you, make me more like him, I ask. And help me know your love when I fall short, which occurs daily.

Even though I live a life of comparative bliss — knowing very really I am unconquerable in Christ — there is still the daily juxtaposition; my sin and his grace.

Oh how I need you, Lord, ever more, and ever more now.

Consider the lament of your servant; I cannot be with you, yet. Nor do I wish to be. Such a confused state I’m in. And still you understand.

How can it be, that on a day off, a day to be with you, a day to enjoy another’s wisdom, that I can also feel a foretaste of having made it. Thank you for the hope of heaven, Lord.

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Lord, help me know your love,

Blessings replete of your sweet Presence,

Within me in my essence,

Whether I’m here or with you above. AMEN.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.