So here I am in the place of worship, eyes open,
drinking in your strength and glory.
In your generous love I am really living at last!
My lips brim praises like fountains.
I bless you every time I take a breath;
My arms wave like banners of praise to you.
Psalm 63, The Message
I’ve been going back to Psalm 63 since January 1. When I was looking over what I wanted to write about this year, I kept returned to two key places in scripture: Psalm 63 and Colossians 2. They were chapters I came across that felt like a salve on my soul, a cool drink of water after being thirsty.
You don’t need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him. When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too. His power extends over everything.
Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It’s not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws. No, you’re already in—insiders—not through some secretive initiation rite but rather through what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin.
Colossians 2, The Message
Today, the scriptures feel like a soothing lullaby on my weary soul. I am weary in a great way. Each day feels like a chance to swim deeper in His grace.
I love what David says in Psalm 63: In your generous love I am really living at last!
Most times I’m living in a small circle of love. I’m working on loving myself, on loving other people. I’m pouring out for others and being loved on by people who are dear to me. It is rich, but it isn’t rich enough.
That God…that’s what I say when He does something that doesn’t make total sense to me. Which is often. His plans are always so perfectly intricate. They fulfill the details I always miss. His generous love is one of those details. He is beyond generous to me.
I read in a book yesterday a sentence that made me feel knocked over: God wasn’t created for you. You were created for Him and His glory.
He is generous in giving me a love that I never earned. He is generous in each breath that fills my lungs and escapes into the air around me. He is generous in His showers of mercy and grace. All things that I didn’t have to ask for in order to receive. He decided I needed them all, and He just gave it away.
I get to live in that love. I get to swim in it like an endless ocean, and He is never withholding. He keeps filling the waters.
And Paul in Colossians: Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It’s not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws. No, you’re already in—insiders—not through some secretive initiation rite but rather through what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin.
I think of a woman raising her hands and closing her eyes, knees hitting the earth as her face crumples with emotion. That’s what these words evoke out of me.
I don’t have to figure this out. This whole loving Jesus and turning around and trying to be like him thing.
I wish I could gather the amount of time I spent believing that I was outside of the fullness of God’s purpose, the destined life for me. I feel like the display of all that wasted time would be too much. It’s a display that would convict me over and over to never believe for a minute that it’s up to me to be within the fullness of God. That I have to race around to be like Him. That I have to chase after ideals that are simply unachievable. That I am a woman who will always be lacking.
We’re already in. We’re already in. We. Are. In.
I’m not going to get kicked out. There isn’t someone waiting in line waiting to fill my spot if I flunk out of loving Jesus or loving others. I am not just filling space.
This spot is mine, written on by His blood, and He spelled my name out permanently. Right here. I am in His fullness, because of what He already went through to get me here.
In His generous love we can finally live at last, and we are in His fullness because of what Christ has already done for us.
It’s the aroma of freedom. The salve of salvation. The soothing redemption.
We’re okay. We’re in. We’re swimming in generous love.
And we never earned it. He decided we deserved it.
JANELLE DELAGRANGE 