Ever since I heard the Lord say to me last week, "You do not have because you do not ask", I have taken Him at His word and started asking for every single need that I had, from the smallest to the greatest. I had always shied away from doing this in the past because it always felt...well...too needy. But this week, He was really showing me that it was only my pride that was holding me back from receiving the fullness of the love that He desires to lavish upon me! He showed me that it is at that place of broken humility that I can come before Him, knowing that He alone sustains me, that His grace can flow and touch every empty place of my being.

What has amazed me so much is that from the smallest to the greatest need that I asked for, He has answered, and not just answered, but answered so quickly!!! It has wrecked my heart to encounter His love everywhere I turned this week, and I am completely overwhelmed. I always wanted to be the kind of person who loved Jesus for who He is, and not what He did for me, because it always felt less selfish. But He showed me so clearly this week that by having this kind of view, I was limiting His love towards me, because He rejoices in communicating and expressing His love to me!

This week has been tough, but it's been one of the most beautiful weeks ever. I was riding on the train on Monday when He showed up and interrupted. I saw Him in front of me, washing my feet, and it wasn't like the last time when He tried to do this, because last time, I felt so awkward and uncomfortable, I kept saying, "Get up! You're God! Stop!!!" This time, I just saw Him look so tenderly into my eyes as He washed my feet and I just kept gazing at Him and we couldn't stop smiling at each other.

What touched my heart so much was not that I wanted to wash His feet (because of course I would! He is the King of Kings!!!), but that He, my King, my God, would gladly wash MY feet. I looked straight into His eyes of love, completely overwhelmed and blown away by how my Jesus would so unabashedly and vulnerably place His heart out there for me. I could have not recognised (and I still don't fully recognise) the gift that He was offering me and trampled all over His heart, but somehow, time and time again, He keeps putting Himself out there so that I would know that He is my God who holds back nothing from me. I could sense so much love and tenderness, and HOPE that I would respond to His love as His bride and it broke my heart, because I know that I break His heart over and over again, but He is always saying, "It is worth it. For you I would die a thousand times over because I love you and have desired you before the creation of the world."

I was so wrecked in the face of such pure, consuming love that I nearly lost it right there on the train. Seeing His passion and desire for me ignited my own passion and desire for Him, and as I gazed into the unfathomable depths of His love, I could not help but cry out in my innermost being, "Lord, take all of me. Take all of my heart. Consume me and make all of me Yours because I gladly give myself to You, my precious Jesus."

There is nothing I can ever do with the strongest of human zeal to ever stir up a passion for God that will last. But, as He shows me His love, as I understand the depths to which He has loved me, a flame is set ablaze within me, a burning flame of love that consumes everything apart from the One I love.

"We love because he first loved us." - 1 John 4:19