Basement Dwelling

Today I’m starting to come up out of the fog engulfing me. So thankful to Jesus for continuing to keep His presence close and known. I hear Him beckoning me to believe. Not just for salvation, but believe that He loves. My head says I know Jesus loves me. But my heart questions why. And my soul wonders if I truly understand.

I feel the Spirit, praying this scripture over my life, For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge —that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (eph 3:14-19)

I wish I could grasp it, to take hold of it, to really know it in the bottom of my soul. But the text says before we can understand the width, heighth and depth we need to get rooted and established in Christ’s love.

Interesting that Paul uses the word root. Think of the work, endurance, growth that happens underneath the soil for the most beautiful of plants. The same is true with us. And, although, I can not find where Paul says this in the text, I believe that he would agree that root work happens in trials of life. The struggles in our life help lay the foundation – strengthens the basement of our souls.

• Rom 8:35-37: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:“For your sake we face death all day long;we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
• 2 Cor 1:5: For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.
• Phil 1:29-30: For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him, since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have.
• YOUR TURN! What scripture would you add here?

Paul writes a lot about his struggles. I believe he spent a lot of hours dwelling in the basement. Not moaning or complaining, but abiding in the presence of Christ within his hardship. Paul’s writing illuminates the darkness around while giving glory to the One doing the excavating our souls, preparing us to understand. May we grow to appreciate Christ’s deep love for us.

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