One Second

A breath.
A blink.
A beat.

What can happen in the space of just a moment, of just one second?
Nothing.
Everything.

We are told that this life is as but a vapor in the wind, here today and gone tomorrow, barely even a blip in the scope of eternity. How much more insignificant one mere second of one minute of one hour of one day of one week of one year of this life...

What good is one mere second?

Every good.

"'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" Matthew 22:37-39

In the space between breaths, in the blink of an eye, in the pause between heartbeats, everything can change. Eternity, held in a second.

In the journey of discovering just how incredibly, unquestionably, astonishingly, astoundingly, resoundingly awesome the Love of God is we cannot forget this. It just takes a second. And we cannot ignore the Second.

I especially have found it so ridiculously easy to remember the Greatest Commandment and yet somehow manage to let the Second Greatest slip right past me. I pray that I be all about loving the Lord my God, pouring myself into building my relationship with my Savior, constantly striving to please Jesus in the things I do, praying for His help, His support, His blessing. In my life. And that's great! Our God loves we when finally recognize His Love, that we desire to desperately desire it, and that we wish to continually build a real relationship that will carry over into eternity. The importance of such things cannot be undermined or over emphasized.

But we can't stop there.
Because that's not it.
Not even close.

If you've been following some of the things I've written, you've probably seen and I hope you realize that the Love of God is impossible to stop, impossible to cap, impossible to contain. And for those of you who haven't, I'll say it again...

The Love of God is impossible to stop, impossible to cap, impossible to contain.
Plain and simple.

So what does that say if we choose, of even simply fail, to allow that love to flow not only in but through us in every possible and imaginable channel by any means necessary?

To call it a failure is a vast and dangerous understatement.

"All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." Matthew 22:40

Jesus Himself put loving God Himself on the same playing field with loving anyone and everyone around us. And everything we can know or do about Christianity is not only directly connected but utterly dependent on these two things.

Whoa. Now that's heavy.

As Christians we simply cannot afford to live in our own little worlds. Because that's not what Christianity is at all. That's not what Love is. Love is designed to flow to us, in us, and through us, a glorious cascade unlike any other the universe has ever known. We are the church. And we are to share this love with each other.
And of course you can't speak of such things without contemplating the effects such a thing would have on those who haven't experienced the Love of Jesus like we have. He ceaselessly loves them as well, and is in agony of the fact that they will not return His undying affection, or that they may not even realize. How can we with a clean conscience truly allow our incredible Love to endure such a thing?

(In speaking of Song of Solomon 3) "Solomon is describing the desperation that comes when we seem unable to capture the heart of the one we love. I wonder if it ever occurs to us that God feels like this. But if God's love is immeasurable and unending, as the Hebrews describe Him, how deep and profound must be His sense of sorrow and rejection. If anyone knows the pain of a love unreturned, it must be God." (Erwin McManus)

That alone should be enough to get us going.

What would happen if we invested just a second into the Second? What if it was the second that was needed? What flat out, straight up miracles could occur if by the grace and Love of God if we were there in that one second where everything matters...

When nothing else matters...

With the boundless, endless, limitless, incomprehensible, unfathomable power that is the Love of Jesus, if we can really try to grasp that, to actually believe it, do we have any idea just what could happen in the space of just a second?

I caught a glimpse of Your splendor
In the corner of my eye
The most beautiful thing I've ever seen
It was like a flash of lightning
Reflected off the sky
And I know
I'll never be the same
~Third Day

Just try to imagine the repercussions of such a thing, if Love were to rage through us in such a way, what just a glimpse of that power would do, how it could and would change things. Maybe change others. I guarantee change us.
So I would challenge you, whether or not you were able to follow my ramblings, to not forget the Second. To not forget the meaning of the second.

Nothing, or everything.
In a mere second, a thought can be born, a seed planted, a heart transformed.
Granted, hardly is anything ever carried to completion without a foundation or a follow through.

But it all begins with a second.

Because it only takes a second. The space of a breath. A breath carrying a name.

"Jesus."

And everything changes.

Dive Deep.