Psa 116:1-9 NLT - [1] I love the LORD because he hears my voice and my prayer for mercy. [2] Because he bends down to listen, I will pray as long as I have breath! [3] Death wrapped its ropes around me; the terrors of the grave overtook me. I saw only trouble and sorrow. [4] Then I called on the name of the LORD: "Please, LORD, save me!" [5] How kind the LORD is! How good he is! So merciful, this God of ours! [6] The LORD protects those of childlike faith; I was facing death, and he saved me. [7] Let my soul be at rest again, for the LORD has been good to me. [8] He has saved me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. [9] And so I walk in the LORD's presence as I live here on earth!
What is this business of love? It has consumed man's thinking for thousands of years, yet still his mind is unable to grasp it. Why do we love? The scripture is the only definitive answer to this question. It is not contained in emotion, wound in transcendence, or bound within ourselves. Love, the word of God tells us, flows from the Father. Notice the Psalmist's prayer to God in Psalm 116. His praise to God is that he "love[s] the LORD because He hear[ed] [his] voice and [his] prayer for mercy." At first it would appear to the casual reader that the love of God is bound to the conditions of what He does for man. To the contrary, it is the love of God which has eternally existed that causes the Lord's redemption to be manifest upon the Psalmist. Redeeming love is not an action so much as it is the product of God Himself.
Notice that the Psalmist beautifully annotates that God "bends down to listen," so the Psalmist will "pray as long as [he has] breath." What a powerful analogy! God bends down to hear our prayers. His infinite frame crushes through every boundary of the heavens, and the debris of His mercy and love fall upon us as He lifts us up into His arms. Redemption! Redeeming love! We are like children lifted up into the arms of God. This is why we love. I John 4.19 says "we love because He first loved us" (NIV).
In all our relationships, all our actions, all that we encounter, we approach everything with love because Christ is love and He lives in us. His redemptive power that rescued the Psalmist, the redemptive power that caused him to shout "How kind the LORD is! How good he is! So merciful, this God of ours!", is the same love which beams down on us every day of our lives. Let's live through our week remembering that. God's redemptive love is continually wrapping itself around us. Our Lord holds us firmly in the times of storms and in the times of joy. He has redeemed us through His Son, and He is never letting go!
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