"Back up and Punt." That is exactly what we are going to do this week to set the stage of our hearts. All so we can move forward and continually achieve the goal of life and freedom we long for. In a recent blog (Bold Love) it was mentioned that repentance for the wounded includes a refusal to be "dead," a refusal to mistrust (not care about) others, and a refusal to despise intimacy and passion. Before we can embrace these themes, we need to be reminded of how God fiercely loves us and experience more of his fierce love. To help accomplish this, I will be reposting a few key blogs throughout this week and next.
God's Love, Part VIII: "Experience the Width"
The dimensions Paul spoke of in this passage concerning Christ’s love for us are four: width, length, height, and depth. It is simply a means to show the magnitude of the vision that opens before us as we seek to comprehend such love. A love that is more vast than the deepest and widest ocean, yet without boundary!
Picture yourself in the center of that mighty ocean. Just as the water envelops you as a glove, with each dimension, so does the love of Jesus! Underneath you, all around you is the current of His love! (taken from the song, “O the Deep Deep Love of Jesus,” by Samuel Francis) You cannot move, and His love not move with you. Its compass is complete, and penetrates every fiber of our being.
Though Paul offered this vision as a whole, breaking down each dimension may help reveal more truths of God’s love, and dispel any lies from our enemy. Lies that seek to steal our believing such love and our full experience of God’s love!
Job 11:9 tells us His love is broader, wider than the sea. Imagine a door opening that wide—wide enough to allow all of humankind to pass through. The love of God is that wide. He does not pick and choose whom He will love. He created every one of us, including you, and His love is extended to all ages, gender, races, nations, and ranks.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son.” (John 3:16a) That includes all of us! Even though we have betrayed Him, and while we were still sitting in our stench, God loved us enough to send His Son to die for us. (God’s Love: Part III, “What Happened?”) Not because He had to, but because He chose to. (Part IV, “Love’s Response")
“But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
Yet, something still whispers in the heart of a woman that we are somehow, or in some way outside the scope of God’s love. (men, too, but we’re focusing on women right now) Society has dealt us a raw blow, belittling our worth. Sadly, the church has not always served us better. Our role is diminished, misunderstood, and our very creation is often viewed as an “afterthought.”
In God’s love: Part II, “Creation’s Story,” we explored how the order of things God created grew in detail, complexity, and awe. Like a symphony, it builds and builds; a crescendo, until finally, it reaches its climax. God, having created every living thing, including Adam, assesses His handiwork and realizes it is not complete.
Enter Eve. The astonishing crescendo. The final touch of God’s masterpiece. The Crown of Creation, as she is referred to in Captivating. Paul writes that man “is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man.” (1 Corinthians 11:7) You are not an afterthought.
I can hear some of us scoffing, Yeah, right. Try telling that to society and much of the church. We’ve been duped to believe we are a lesser gender, and that we were created to be man’s slave. We feel unseen, unsought, and uncertain (Captivating). With such thoughts, we either take control, or fall in a heap of worthlessness.
We must not look to a fallen world to tell us our worth. What if the part we were given in this story is much grander and vital than we’ve been made to believe? Thankfully, it is!
“When God creates Eve, he calls her an ezer kenegdo. ‘It is not good for the man to be alone, I shall make him [an ezer kenegdo]’ (Genesis 2:18 Alter). Hebrew scholar Robert Alter, who has spent years translating the book of Genesis, says that this phrase is ‘notoriously difficult to translate.’ The various attempts we have in English are ‘helper’ or ‘companion’ or the notorious ‘help meet.’ Why are these translations so incredibly wimpy, boring, flat…disappointing? What is a help meet, anyway? What little girl dances through the house singing, ‘One day I shall be a help meet’? Companion? A dog can be a companion. Helper? Sounds like Hamburger Helper. Alter is getting close when he translates it ‘sustainer beside him.’
The word ezer is used only twenty other places in the entire Old Testament. And in every other instance the person being described is God himself, when you need him to come through for you desperately.
Most of the contexts are life and death, by the way, and God is your only hope. Your ezer. If he is not there beside you…you are dead. A better translation therefore of ezer would be ‘lifesaver.’ Kenegdo means alongside, or opposite to, a counterpart.”
(John and Stasi Eldredge, Captivating)
(John and Stasi Eldredge, Captivating)
WHOA. This is Eve. This is woman. This is you. And I dare say this is why God loves you. Not because He “has to.” He sees who you can be, and He longs to redeem the ezer kenegdo hidden inside.
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