This morning, I found myself listening to Reckless Love performed by the songwriter, Cory Asbury. I had heard it before, but today it lingered differently. Some songs entertain. Others accompany us through the day. Then there are those rare songs that seem to pull back a curtain, allowing us to glimpse something we have always known but somehow forgotten.
As the words unfolded, I wasn’t merely listening. I was remembering.
I thought of a God who has never been content to love from a distance.
A God who does not stand on a mountain, arms folded, waiting for us to finally find our way home. Instead, He steps into the dust of our wandering. He enters our tangled forests, our dark valleys, our locked rooms, and our self-made prisons.
Love, in its truest form, has always been a search party.
Perhaps that is why Jesus spoke of the shepherd leaving ninety-nine sheep to search for one that had wandered away. It seems unreasonable. Any sensible accountant would call it a poor investment. Yet love has never calculated worth the way markets do.
It counts differently.
It sees differently.
It refuses to leave anyone behind.
The song paints pictures of mountains climbed, shadows illuminated, walls kicked down, and lies torn apart. They are not descriptions of an impatient God forcing His way into our lives. They are images of a love that refuses to surrender to our fear, shame, pride, or brokenness.
How many walls have we built to keep ourselves hidden?
Walls of achievement so no one notices our emptiness.
Walls of religion so no one sees our doubts.
Walls of humour to disguise our loneliness.
Walls of busyness to silence questions we are afraid to ask.
Yet God’s love keeps arriving at the front door we have barricaded and somehow finds a way into the rooms we thought were permanently abandoned.
Not because we deserve it.
Not because we earned it.
But because love keeps searching until it finds what it has always called its own.
That is the part that humbles me most.
We spend much of life trying to become worthy of love. We polish our image, collect achievements, and hope that if we become enough, we will finally be embraced.
The Gospel tells a different story.
Before we spoke our first word, we were already known.
Before we took our first breath, we were already loved.
Before we stumbled into our failures, grace had already begun writing a better ending.
There is something wonderfully unsettling about that kind of love. It cannot be manipulated. It cannot be purchased. It cannot be frightened away by our worst moments.
It simply keeps coming.
Some people stumble over the word reckless. I understand why. God is not careless. He is wisdom itself. Yet from where we stand, His love often looks wonderfully extravagant. It spends where others would save. It forgives where others would condemn. It pursues those who have long stopped pursuing Him.
It looks like a Father running down a dusty road to embrace a son who has squandered everything.
It looks like Christ stretching out His hands on a cross for people who were still rejecting Him.
It looks like heaven refusing to write anyone off too soon.
Perhaps that is what I carried away from the song today.
The greatest miracle is not that we finally find God.
It is that, through every season of our running, hiding, pretending, and wandering, He never stops looking for us.
And somehow, every road of grace ends with His arms already open.
Restpiration 