LAVISH

As I look back upon my bike tour the theme that I see again and again is God's love. Even before the bike tour began the song He gave me was "I am loved by God". He continued to showed me again and again the depths of His love throughout the entire week.


One of my favorite climbs was on Monday  morning. It was during that 8 mile climb out of Watkins Glen that God spoke to my heart in a couple of different ways. I already blogged about one theme. The other theme was the lavishness of His love. I have been thinking and mediating on the lavishness of His love since that climb. 


Throughout the bike tour I blogged each day about the rides- all that I saw and experienced as I was on my bike. What I did not blog about was our time in the evenings. This was my first bike tour. I hope many more are in my future. Yet I realize that I started on the high end of bike tours. My next one will probably be the other extreme and I will be roughing it as I camp each night. This tour was amazing in the sense that we stayed at absolutely beautiful places each night, dined in fancy restaurants, and had such wonderful bike support and attention throughout our ride. 


As I was biking up that 8 mile climb I was overwhelmed with it all. The word that came to mind was lavish. The night before I had enjoyed a wonderful dinner that included an appetizer, entree, and dessert. When I go out to eat I will often order soup because it's the cheapest thing on the menu. I felt like every evening I was splurging because I could order anything on the menu regardless of price. The first night we stayed at this fancy beautiful hotel. Amazing view of the water. When I came in for the evening, I discovered that my bed cover had been turned over and there was a fancy chocolate on top. My shades had been drawn and there was quiet jazz music playing on the television. Each hotel was unique, beautiful, and had amazing views of the water. Places that I would not normally be able to stay at on my teacher salary. It was simply lavish. And I was overwhelmed by the lavishness of it all.


I am pretty sure that many of the others in my bike group were used to such treatment. I am sure they enjoyed their stay each night but not quite the same way as I did. This was not the norm for me and I was so excited to see and explore our new destination each evening. It made me think about when I came back from my last missions trip a couple years ago. I was grateful for such simple things like a hot shower, a washing machine, grocery stores filled with wide food choices. My American lifestyle felt lavish in compared to what I had just experienced.  


Lavish. God spoke to my heart.... my daughter- you are in awe of the lavishness you are experiencing, that is such a small reflection of the lavishness of my love.


Do I realize how lavish God's love is for me? I confess that it's easy to take for granted His love for me. Just as it is easy to take for granted my lavish lifestyle of running hot water and electricity until I am in a third world country. Or how the lavishness of this past week would become common if it was all I ever experienced. How often do I stop to really mediated, appreciate, and praise God for the beauty of the gospel? I am a sinner who is completely unable to save myself. I deserve hell because I have sinned before a holy God. Yet God, who rich in mercy had compassion. In my filth and sin, He choose to save me. He sent His only Son to come to this earth to die for me. I did nothing to earn my salvation. Yet God looked upon me with love. Because of Jesus' death and resurrection, I can now have a relationship with the King of Kings. Because I have accepted Christ's gift of salvation, God now sees me as holy, pure, blameless, forgiven. I belong to Him and nothing can separate me from His love. Nothing. What lavish love. Love that is undeserving. Love that is unconditional. Lavish.


 ^"In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us." Ephesians 1:7-8


"See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!" 1 John 3:1


When we were at Skaneateles Lake we saw a beautiful house on the waterfront. We learned that the cost of this mansion was $26 million. Talk about a whole new level of lavishness.


What I love about God's love is that we can always go deeper. Experience more. We only have the faintest idea of the depths of His love. One day we will see Him face to face and then we will fully comprehend the utter depth of His love. Until that time may we seek Him and know more of such lavish and extravagant love.


"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, 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 to the measure of all the fullness of God." Ephesians 3:17-19


***I love how amazing God is. When I started to write this blog entry it was pouring outside. I love storms as they remind me of the fury and passion of God's love for me. Then 10 minutes later the rain had stopped... I was mid-way through this post when my dad called to me to look at the sunset. I quickly grabbed my running shoes and started to hike up the hill near our house. And wow, what a brilliant sunset. Another way that God speaks to my heart and reminds me of His love- through the beauty of sunsets. I had a huge smile on my face as I pictured my Abba Father in heaven smiling down on me. My daughter is writing about the lavishness of my love. I will show her again and again of how deep my love is for her. A rainstorm and a brilliant sunset in a half-hour span right when I'm writing this blog post. Talk about the lavishness of His love for me!***