Steadfast Love

#Guyon #100DaysintheSecretPlace #OolaFaith #FindingOola #Godskindoflove

"Jesus loved His Father on Mt Tabor, where He was transfigured, but He loved Him no less on Calvary, where He was crucified." Guyon

Spring love. New, fresh, exploding in revelation and joy.

Summer love. Easy, comfortable, long days of grace.

Fall love. Some aspects start to fade, wither, external fire needs to be applied.

Winter love. Dead, buried, asleep, a hint of hope that spring will come again.

And so the seasons shift. In nature, in relationships, in our walk with God.

To recognize the season is insight. To endure each season, with steadfast love, is wisdom.

Jeanne Guyon's life reads like a bleak winter tale; persecution, betrayed and imprisonment. However, her influence in unparalleled. She is the most read woman in church history and, as an author from the 1600's, is second in sales only to William Shakespeare. It's the depth of her insight into God's ways that draws people, across the globe, and across the centuries.

"If your love for the Lord is pure, you will love Him as much on Calvary as on Mr Tabor. If you gave yourself to Him to be blessed and to be loved, you cannot suddenly turn around and take back your life at another season, when you are being crucified!"

This is a 21st Century worthy challenge. We sing about God's steadfast love. We rely on it. But what about our love in return? Do I love God as much in the depths of winter as I do in the glory of Spring?

"How much do you desire to hunger after God? You will hunger after God, and find Him, in the same proportion that you hunger after the cross."

Again, we sing about hungering after God, about Jesus being all we need. But do we live it? When difficulties come; betrayal, sickness, loss, do I recognize Calvary? Do I weep bitter tears and never move to the forgiving of others, or to the giving up of my very life into the hands of my Father?

"Here is a true spiritual principle that the Lord will not deny: God gives us the cross, and then the cross gives us God."

The God of Calvary and the God of Mt Tabor. I can't separate Him and choose, like eating only the red Smarties. He comes as the God of all seasons.