Adoration

I don’t know how it is for you, but my internal sense of celebration rarely lines up precisely with the seasons. For example, it wasn’t until this morning, a full two days after Thanksgiving, that my heart began to swell with spontaneous gratitude. After sleeping late, I made myself a cup of tea and nestled into the deep cushions of my couch. Pen in hand, I sought to capture the waves of love rising up inside me, the wealth of worship pouring forth. As always, words fell short and I closed my eyes, sinking into this sense of sweetest grace.

My heart falls to its knees before You in wonder and gratitude, I wrote then. God, my God — I would not even breathe without You. Yet Your grace reaches far beyond breath …

You found me in my darkness. You saw me mired in struggle and stumbling, and You sought me out. You bought freedom for me — paid for it with Your very life — and rested not until You delivered the fullness of Your promises. How do I repay that kind of love? How do I begin to show You what Your gift has meant to me? I owe You far more than everything. I could pour myself out at Your feet again and again, and it would never be enough. How can I have so much, and yet so little? So much, when I consider the wealth of Your blessings to me; so little, when it comes time to offer them back up to You …

You have cultivated in me — through years of hardship and testing and transformation — such an abundance of love, such richness of spirit. God, I desire nothing more than to offer it all for Your Kingdom …

I can well understand the regret a new bride might feel when she comes to her promised husband less than chaste, for it is much the same feeling I’ve had when I stand before Jesus, my heavenly Bridegroom. I long to offer Him something more than what I am, because He is so wholly deserving of something better. If only I could come to Him clean, with the heart of a child! Yet none of us comes to God pure and spotless, save the Lamb of God: Jesus, Himself. Scripture says again and again, “There is no one righteous; no, not one” (see Romans 3:10).

Nothing in me is worthy, but what a gracious, beautiful Lord I serve! When I come to Him dressed in rags, stained and soiled by sin, it is He who washes me clean and dresses me in spotless robes of His righteousness. I need not hide my face in shame before this God. He knows all, sees all, and loves me still. My flaws do not disgust Him; not one scar will turn Him away.

He bears scars of His own, you see — scars He willingly earned in exchange for my brideprice. My freedom was worth the world to Him, worth setting aside heaven’s perfection and submitting to a yoke of suffering and servanthood. Worth trudging through the muck of His own corrupted creation. Worth limiting His own power and understanding in order to meet me in my mess. He was mocked and misunderstood, hated and humiliated, and yet He never loved less; His light was never dimmed. He went on, offering truth and hope and healing, lavishing grace and extending full forgiveness. For one agonizing moment, He endured even a separation from His Father, who could not look upon His beloved Son so saturated with the sin of the ages.

And still, He chose to come for me. Still, He gave His all that I might be set free.

When I fall before Him — humbled, broken, ashamed — how do I dare lift my head and meet the liquid love shining from His eyes? How can I hope to return it? My debt is inescapable; His pardon, indescribable. In the light of love radiating from His face, my shame melts away like snow in the springtime sun. Through His sacrifice, I have been made worthy; by His blood, I am washed clean.

He takes my hand and raises me to my feet. I step out from under the sentence of death and into the fullness of LIFE.

What grace and glory swell my soul when I consider the full reach of my redemption! I grasp at words to express my adoration; even the boldest fall short. I gaze upon the face of my Bridegroom and find sublime acceptance in His eyes. With all that I’ve done, with all that I am, I am chosen; I am cherished —

I am His.

*Love Like This* by Lauren Daigle