I met Marcia when I was 14, become best friends when I was 15 and then realized when I was 16 that there was something deeper to our friendship. We were in love. When Marcia and I were married four years later we thought our love could not possibly grow stronger. Silly kids. Yes, we knew love, but had no idea how incredibly stronger and deeper that love would become. Forty two years later, cancer has revealed an even greater depth to this love. Early on in our relationship we made a commitment to each other and to God. Even though we would experience turmoil, disagreements, and pain like everyone else, we decided that we would belong to each other forever. It’s like Ruth Graham, Billy Graham’s wife said in an interview once. The interviewer asked her if there were ever a moment when things were tough that she had considered divorcing her famous minister-husband. With a certain twinkle in her eye Mrs. Graham responded, “Divorce, never! Murder… a couple of times.” 🙂

 

Let’s face it, be it a spouse or a close friend, sometimes there comes things that threaten to separate us from the love we once felt in that person’s presence. What we do with that temptation is found at the center of the relationship itself. Taking the threat of a forever severed relationship off the table brings the weight of committed love to crush any threats that come our way.

 

Did you know that’s what God is for us? His love is unconditional. He freely offers it to anyone who would receive it. We all fall short of loving God well. We stray, turn away, forget God much of the day, or openly raise our fist at Him when we are dismayed. We might even sometimes question his existence. And how does He respond? With an unending love and amazing grace.

 

Can anything separate Him from our love? Could cancer? Poverty? Lost love? Depression? Lost job or friends? Chronic pain? Unfulfilled dreams? Most certainly, these will act as a fiery furnace to test our love and our faithfulness. But a committed love will keep us secure in our relationship. Like Daniel’s three friends proclaimed when they were threatened with being thrown into a real fiery furnace: Our God will save us from this fire but even if he does not we will not serve another ‘god’.

 

Nothing can separate you from His love and presence, regardless of how you feel about Him or the circumstances that want to consume you. Nothing. I hope you are convinced of that truth.

 

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39