Impressing God

We Don’t Have to Impress God

You see, He loves us as much when we’re asleep as when we’re awake.  He loves it when we sit down with Him and ask Him questions—but He also adores it when we just sit quietly before Him, listening for His voice and what’s on His heart.  Most of you probably know all this already, but I need constant reminders that I don’t have to do back flips to make God happy.

He once brought this point home at a hospital where a friend and I were visiting patients.  A nurse came to us and asked if we would visit a particular man who was a quadriplegic and who was dying.  When we went inside, the patient was talking to the nurse, and it was obvious she was so happy to be in that room.  Oddly enough—this man who was dying, who was unable to lift anything except an eyebrow—was speaking with tremendous kindness and encouragement to this nurse.  She started to leave the room so we could visit with him, but before she did, she leaned over and whispered to us, “He’s our favorite patient.  He never complains and is always such a pleasure to be around.” 

I was pretty taken aback by her words as I looked at this large man laying on a bed—completely immobile.  But he began to speak with my friend and I, and he was the same to us—encouraging, warm and friendly.  He told us he loved Jesus with all his heart.  When we talked about the severity of his illness, he said he was ready to go home whenever the Lord wanted to bring him—but he didn’t seem to be in any hurry, either—which I speculated to be rather odd, given his overall condition.

I have pondered that experience many, many times over the past 15 years or so.  The Lord has spoken to me about it, asking if I was any more pleasing to Him—as I visited patients as a volunteer chaplain in the hospital—than this dear brother was.  All of my earthly understanding wanted to say, “Of course I’m more valuable because I can talk and walk and do your work on the earth.”  But I knew in the core of my being that this wasn’t true.  This man held the same value to the Lord as any of us who are ministering for the Lord in our lives.  His whole being was focused on King Jesus, and his intense love for Him melted out of every pore.  This was True Love in action.   And that’s our destiny—showing Jesus’ love through our very existence.

But that’s another blog!  The point is—as our Beloved so graciously showed me on yet another occasion—that even a sleeping infant is as valuable to Him as say, someone like Billy Graham at his most active.  When a parent goes into a child’s room to check and see if the child is asleep and hears that restful breathing, the parent loves the child as much as if the child was up and running around the house, playing, shouting…being a child.

And this is how our Father loves us.  Whether we mess up and do something we shouldn’t (like the playful child when she knocks over a lamp) or whether we’re ministering for His glory with all of our hearts, He loves us just the same.  All He really desires is our love for Him, anyway, isn’t it?  Because when we love Him, whatever we do emanates from this place. 

As I listen to the call to prayer that mandates its religion’s followers stop everything, get on their knees and recite a rote set of words in a language most of its adherents don’t even comprehend, I’m so very, very grateful that Jesus died for us to be able to enter the throne of grace—over His dead body.  Nothing I do can impress Him any more than just sitting on His lap, still, listening to the incredible beat of His enormous heart. 

“We love because he first loved us.”  (1 John 4:19)