"Take away my foolish desires, and let me find life by walking with you." (Psalm 119:37)
Reading: Psalm 119:33-40
What kind of a love is it that allows us to love someone forever... the love that allows us to forgive even when it hurts deeply... the love that still loves where there is no reason or grounds to even love at all... the love that persists even when it is unreturned or reciprocated... the love that still has passion and feeling with no conditions or strings attached? The answer is simple and profound. It is a love that doesn't originate from us. It is the same love that made the infinite fragile and frail to the point of death because of a passion for one so base and selfish as myself. In short, this kind of love is downright out of this world. It is completely supernatural. Psalm 119:33-40 echoes what all of Psalm 119 is really to its core... an attempt to visualize how we frail limited human beings can experience and live this supernatural love. These verses about God's laws, precepts, or words are really desperate cries for a supernatural presence to become an intimate part of our daily life. Mark the focus verse (119:37). We are asking this supernatural presence to purge our foolish, self-serving nature and reorient us with a deep desire and passion just to walk with this supernatural presence. That is living. And living is loving. Can't mix oil and water. Can't mix love and selfishness. In the Louisiana gulf oil spill, entire ecosystems were destroyed because oil couldn't mix with any living ecosystem. The ecosystem of love that is necessary for us to "really" live cannot thrive when contaminated with the "crude" oil of our selfish nature. We need to be delivered from the foolishness of our self-centeredness. We need to live by loving this supernatural presence so deeply that we will only walk in life with this presence. This is loving of a supernatural kind.
"Lord I confess I am the most selfish person around. I am tired of my life being poisoned by this foolish desire only for what is best for me. I want to live! I want to love! Please set me free from my selfishness and let me find myself in loving you and only you. Amen."
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