I once heard a speaker named Louie Giglio talk about experiencing Mr. Rainier. He once studied this mountain, it's features, glaciers and geological wonders. He could rattle off all kinds of facts about this beautiful mountain, and it certainly is impressive when one learns about it:
- It is is highest peak in the Cascade range, at over 14,400 feet, and it towers nearly 8,000 feet above anything else nearby
- Its 36 miles of glaciers give it the largest single-peak glacier system in the world
- It has the world's largest volcanic glacier cave network within its ice-filled craters
Because of its relative height and isolation, it dominates the skyline for miles and miles. Mr. Rainier has been called the most impressive mountain in the lower 48 states, with a presence like few other mountains in the world. So one can see why the speaker I heard was amazed and enchanted by it. Since he studied it in the minutest detail, he felt he knew it well.
But then he took a trip to visit the actual mountain. Up till that point he had never actually seen Mt. Rainier. He arrived at the National Park, rounded the final bend, and suddenly he found himself face to face with the REAL Mt. Rainier. And....he broke down and cried! He wept! It was so much more wonderful than he had imagined. The actual experience of Mt. Rainier in all its beauty moved him to tears.
I loved this story because I felt like that in my experience with God. I thought I knew who God was. I thought I knew His character and what He was like. But I was wrong about Him!
I had known God was love, I had said God was love, but I hadn't really experienced very much what His love really was like. I had imagined His love was along these lines, "Yes, I love you, but I wish you'd just do better, if only you could do better.." It was a sort of disappointed love. Eventually I got burned out on trying to "live the Christian life," feeling like it was too hard, feeling a was a failure. When I was there in the dust of all my broken down dreams of being some great Christian, right there God lifted my eyes and let me "see" Him face to face.
What I saw was the face of Real Love. And it turned out to be an unconditional love. He loved me as a failure, a burn-out. He loved me as a Pharisee. He loved me as a lonely child looking for love, never feeling good enough to be loved. He loved me as I was, where I was. He accepted me without a single condition, without any requirements or "if only you'd do better" stipulations. That revelation of who He really was melted my heart and changed me forever!
All that I was longing for, working for, hoping for I already had. God had already loved me, accepted me, embraced me, and made me "okay" with Him. All that had come freely through Jesus, the One I'd received long ago by simple faith. I had feared the look in His eyes might be one of condemnation and displeasure; instead, it was one of complete acceptance and joy! God wasn't saying "if only you'd do better;" He was saying, "If only you knew how much I love you and delight in you right now!"
At the end of our broken dreams, at the end of the twisted paths we take, at the end of our good intentions, God is there, "round the final bend." One look at the real God and our hearts melt. Our tears flow. Our fears subside. Our hopes of loving embrace are realized. One look in His eyes and we know we are accepted and loved forever, not because of our less than stellar performance, but because of the Son's infinitely perfect performance. We fly beyond all we thought was true of God up to the summits of what's Really True - we are loved for good, taken into His arms forever, accepted with no chance of being rejected! And we'll never be the same....