Good morning friends,

I was in prayer this morning and the song by Matthew West called The God Who Stays started playing in my spirit. The lyrics to the bridge is what it started with and then the chorus rang out. Here is what I was hearing;

My shame can’t separate
My guilt can’t separate
My past can’t separate
I’m Yours forever
My sin can’t separate
My scars can’t separate
My failures can’t separate
I’m Yours forever
No enemy can separate
No power of hell can take away
Your love for me will never change
I’m Yours forever

You’re the God who stays
You’re the one who runs in my direction
When the whole world walks away
You’re the God who stands
With wide open arms
And You tell me nothing I have ever done can separate my heart
From the God who stays

We learned to run because people ran from us. We learned to be alone because people left us alone. We learned to hurt because hurt people didn’t know how much we craved love. We remain distant because we haven’t had people who stayed. We unconciously and usually unintentionally run away from God just like we run away from people. We long for intimacy but we don’t know how to be intimate. We hear the words of God but struggle to believe them not because they are not true but because we have not seen them modeled.

The Lord is softening hearts in a way I have never seen before in my life. He is making room for people in our hearts, our lives, our families, our schedules. There is an energy that comes from really being loved by God and by other people. Intimacy is the craving of humanity. When we don’t know the love of valuable people in our lives we struggle to know the depths of the love of God for us. But models are rising up, showing us what love really looks like, feels like, sounds like and when we experience it we can’t deny it. He is the God who stays and He is bringing people into our life who look and sound like God to us and it is unlocking our hearts in ways our minds can’t comprehend but our hearts are longing for. Lean in there is so much more to see, hear and feel. He is the God who stays.