What Women Want -- A Man Motivated by Love

Nick Marshall finally intervened in Erin's life because his conscience finally got the best of him. Jesus' motives are so much stronger and more pure. He wants to intervene because of his great love for you.

Here it is beautifully illustrated:

“In your love you kept me from the pit of destruction.” Isaiah 38:17

The words, ‘your’ and ‘you’ in this verse refers to God. The writer is saying that God was motivated by love to rescue him from the pit of destruction. It gets even more interesting if we investigate the meaning behind the word love used here. In English, we only have one word for love. Unfortunately, we use the same word to describe the way we feel about our Mom, our husband, and our favorite restaurant. In many other languages, this is not the case.

The word love used here, in the original Hebrew, is chashaq defined by Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance as: to cling, delight in, to deliver, to have a desire, to long for.
This word is interchangeable with chasak, which is defined as: to restrain or refrain, by implication to spare, or to preserve also to observe: hold back.

After meditating on that verse, and both these original definitions for love, you may, as I did, begin to see just how motivated Jesus is to intervene. God is eager to reach down and rescue someone who is in desperate need. He is prepared to go to any lengths to find us and draw us into the safety of his loving arms.

The kind of love described in this verse reminds me of an incident that occurred when my son was about 15 months old. He was round all over, nearly bursting out of his little life jacket, as he toddled around the pool side in the back yard. He was tottering around much too fast and much too close to the edge of the pool for my comfort. I was perched on the edge of my pool chair, watching him every second, and I kept warning him to slow down, and to keep his distance from the edge of the pool. Finally it happened. He got too close to the edge and as he teetered, time stood still for me as I realized he was going to fall in.

Without hesitation, I dove for the pool’s edge – my bare knees scraping on the rough concrete pool deck. I got there while he was still sinking deeper and deeper into the water. I plunged my arm into the water and reached for him. In that eternal moment, I saw the look of shock and terror on his face beneath the clear water – his big blue eyes open wide, his mouth twisted as if to scream. I grabbed hold of his life jacket and yanked hard. With adrenaline surging through my veins, I had the strength to pull him out in one fluid motion and set him on his feet on the pool deck beside me.

I hugged him tight and comforted him as he cried. It was only after he was happily, albeit more cautiously, back at play that I glanced down at my knees and noticed they were raw, and bleeding. Blood streamed steadily down both legs.

Chasak love is just like that. He reaches down without the slightest hesitation, without calculating the cost, and pulls us up out of whatever trouble we are in. Then He comforts us when we cry.

Yes, our Jesus intervenes to save us, even when we least deserve it.

Readers: Do you ever feel like you least deserve God's love? Perhaps you've messed up or made a big mistake? That is just when God's might arm is reaching down to grab you, dear one.