Steadfast Love

Good morning, Immanuel. We are secure in the steadfast love of Christ!

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” (Romans 8:35)

Photo by Fineas Anton on Unsplash

The trouble with lists is that it’s easy to skim over them and miss something significant. A few years ago, I was struggling with severe anxiety, and as I read through Romans 8 one day, I got to verse 35, where Paul lists things that might think would rob us of God’s love. I must have read this dozens of times over the years and suddenly noticed a word in there I hadn’t seen before: 

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?  

There it was, staring at me: distress. Distress shall not separate us from the love of Christ. In the midst of it, it feels like it could. But there is Scripture telling me in black and white that my experience of distress was in no way affecting my place in Christ’s heart. Whatever else was being (or feeling like it was being) upended in my life, the love of Christ for me was entirely undisturbed. More than that, the presence of this verse must mean that Paul was writing under the guidance of a Savior who knew that, 2,000 years later, I would be reading this text in the heat of enormous distress. What a kind and wise Savior to anticipate our needs and to minister to them so clearly!

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Reflection & Prayer

3 Be gracious to me, O Lord,
    for to you do I cry all the day.
4 Gladden the soul of your servant,
    for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.
5 For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,
    abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.
6 Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer;
    listen to my plea for grace.
7 In the day of my trouble I call upon you,
    for you answer me. (Psalm 86:3-7)