All You Need is Love

I had a conversation with a friend yesterday about living a gospel in Thailand that teaches grace and love to a culture whose majority religion is so deeply rooted in works- in earning ones salvation. And then this morning I read Ephesians 3, and if I could sum up verses 14 to 19 it would say something like

If only you knew! If only you grasped! If only you understood- 

   The depths of God's love for you, and 

   The strength of his power within you.

Truth is, I don't think we have a clue. If we did, how different the world would be. How differently I'd respond to students or stress or inefficiency or even myself if I responded out of a place of love instead of a place of fear or insecurity. 

Have you ever watched a child who truly knows that they are safe and loved in their parents presence? Such freedom and trust!  I was at my friend's house the other day and her nearly-two-year-olds were playing a game jumping off the couch into their Daddy's arms. They leapt off the edge with complete abandon. (Never mind the moment when one didn't notice Daddy was already catching the other and she just walked right off the edge with a plop on the floor, stunned but no worse for the wear). 

I want to be more like them in my spiritual life.  I want to be rooted and established in that love. I want to be filled with the love that surpasses understanding. I want to know that He who does immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine is on my side. I want to fully get it, grasp it, know it. And then I want to live it in a world around me that still stumbles through the darkness of works, that they too may know the freedom and joy that is found only in grace. I want them to know the Beatles were right. All you need is Love.