Love’s like a hurricane

There is a song made popular by the David Crowder Band, written by John Mark McMillan called “Oh How He Loves Us.” that is sung in many churches across America.  Today as we were singing the words “Loves like a hurricane,” I couldn’t help but think about the destruction that was recently caused in Texas by Hurricane Harvey or the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina.  My heart goes out to those who are impacted by devastation of the storms.  It was likely thoughts of them, that took me down my path of thought.

Love’s like a hurricane.  Hurricanes are destructive and devastating.  I admit those are two words I have never attached to love before.  A break-up yes, but not love.  Yet, I think about how God’s love has impacted my life.  And maybe it is destructive and devastating.

His love destroyed much of my selfish ways.  Yes, there are at times a few remnants, much like the rubble left in the aftermath of a true hurricane.  It destroyed my impatience, as I learned to wait for the process in my life to catch up with what God wanted to do in my life.

His love devastated my ugly attitude and replaced it with a much kinder version of me.  It destroyed my jealous tendencies, and completely devastated my selfish, proud, rude and self-boasting ways.  Some of my family still has a hard time believing how much of that was destroyed.

Love destroyed my ledgers, those I kept of every wrong that had been done to me.  Sometimes I just wanted to rehearse them in my mind, but there were times that I used those wrongs to justify my actions or place shame on the wrong-doer when I was feeling especially hurt.  Yes, I admit I grasped hold of a few pages that I thought I needed, but even those have been faded by impact of God’s love for me and are slowly crumbling in forgiveness.

My anger and irritability still bob above the surface in the distance, but love has  put such distance between those feelings.  Much like items are swept inland that don’t belong there during a storm.  Love had devastated the lies that once ruled my life.  Truth has taken over all the space that lies once lived.  I thought I needed to hide behind those masks, but there is such freedom and rejoicing in the truth.  So I guess when I look back at how love has impacted my life, I can see the destruction.

And yet there is another line in the song that made me want to hit my knees in praise because of God’s love “I don’t have time to maintain these regrets, When I think about the way He loves me.”  See, there is nothing in my like that I would go back in time and change, because it made me who I am today.  However, that doesn’t mean I don’t have some regrets.

There are regrets from my past that I have maintained.  I have allowed them to bungee strap me to my past choices.  I will be the first to say, I really used to be an awful person.  I hurt people, sometimes unintentionally, but all too often blatantly intentional.  I made a lot of poor choices.  Yes, they shaped me into who I am, but if I could have gained the knowledge without the experience and without changing who I am now, I would probably be much more free.

But today, as I sang those words, I felt God’s love for me – despite my regrets.  He doesn’t hold them against me.  He cut the cords that bound me, at the cross.  I just have to choose to unhook the bungee cords and walk away from the regrets.  I have chosen to maintain them, but I don’t have too.  He destroyed the ledgers of my past sins, the things that I have allowed to hold me back don’t even exist anymore. They were washed away in the hurricane of His love.