In Which I Explain "and a parachute"

If you were to take a look at my blog address/url/whatever it is called you would notice that, when properly spaced, it reads "18 inches and a parachute." So, what does that mean? Well, I will tell you... at least the second part.

Today, in my Wednesday meeting, we were looking at Ephesians chapter 3. (By the way, we have been studying Ephesians at church too... apparently it is the season for studying Ephesians and I am very okay with that.) So, there is tons of truth and loads of cool thought that can be drawn from this chapter but I am just going to focus on a few verses.

Ephesians 3:17b-19 And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge- that you may be filled with the measure of all the fullness of God.

Paul is calling the Ephesians (and us) to grasp how great the love Christ has for us. But that's the thing, because we are humans, we cannot fully grasp or understand this love. We can't wrap our minds around it. There are no limits to it. It is wide and long, high and deep, and there is nothing we can do to make Him love us less. There is nothing I can do that will make Christ love me less. Sometimes I forget that because it goes completely against my human nature and extent to which my mind understands.

I can sit here and talk about how that love exists. I can say that there is nothing I can do to make Christ love me more or less. I can tell people that I have this one in the bag. I can give all the right answers. Yet, all of that is talk... not that it isn't true, but it is just talk until I put faith behind it.

For years my dad, older sister, and I have talked about going skydiving. On random days text messages and e-mails are sent trying to decide where we want to go skydiving, when our schedules will put the three of us in the same place long enough to actually make this happen, and how our desire to jump out of an airplane keeps getting greater and greater. We talk a lot. I think about it a lot. I could do research on parachutes, watch YouTube videos on parachutes, and listen to instructors tell me exactly how it will work. I can see demonstrations and read books.... I can do a lot of things. But, there is going to come a time when I will have to have faith that when I jump out of that airplane and fall thousands of feet that parachute is going to deploy when I pull the cord.

At some point I am going to have to stop talking and have faith that the parachute will do its job and get me back to land safely.

Love, God's love, is exactly the same. I can talk and read, study and think all I want but eventually I just have to have faith in something I don't understand, something I cannot fully grasp. So when I jump, I jump in faith knowing there is a love beyond my control and my understanding.

Love is a parachute.

Peace.