Unrelenting

"You won't relent until You have it all..."

This is one of my absolute favorite worship songs - You Won't Relent (Seal) by Misty Edwards. The chorus is very simple: "You won't relent until You have it all; my heart is Yours."

I looked up that word "relent". Here's what dictionary.com says: "to soften in feeling, temper, or determination".

God won't give up on us. He won't soften in feeling or determination until He has all of us. Rejection won't stop Him. Outside influences won't stop Him. Satan won't stop Him. Our own sin won't stop Him. He won't give up. He'll fight as long as we're alive to win our hearts.

I'm currently sitting on my bed in my bedroom. Zoom out a bit, and there's my whole family. Keep going, there's my neighborhood, my city, my county, my state, my country, my world. I'm swallowed up in a sea of humanity. I'm one person in a giant pile of six billion. I'm one face in the crowd of our entire planet. And God won't give up until He's won my heart.

If God was a shepherd with six billion sheep and I was the only one who wandered away, God would track me down, stopping at nothing until He'd gotten me safely back home.

But it wouldn't be enough for Him to find me and forcefully drag me to Him. That's not how God operates. Instead, He'll risk himself. He'll make his heart clear, and then leave it up to me to respond. If I tearfully throw my arms around Him and allow myself to be carried home, He will rejoice the entire way. And if I reject His offer and continue to wallow in this world...He won't relent.

He won't relent until He has it all. Until all of my heart is His.

God knew me before the world was formed. He knew me before there was a me, before there were my parents, before there was a King David and a Moses and an Abraham He knew that there would be a me someday. He knew there would be a me, and He knew there would be a problem, because He knew I would have no way to get to Him because of the barrier blocking humanity from getting to God: ourselves, our sin.

And so, before I ever existed, God started planning a way to get me back.

" 'Now we're getting somewhere. But that's not the way it works, Groovy. I need to know what it's worth to you. It's not what I want that matters here. It's how much you want whatever's over there that matters. How much will you pay?'
'Twenty thousand.'
Sweeney just stared at him.
'Fifty thousand - if you get me in.'
'Not enough.'
'For crying out loud, then! How much is enough?'
'Your desire's bigger than that, Groovy. I've seen it in your eyes. You would sell your soul for whatever's in that building...'
'You're asking me what I'll pay you, not what it's worth,' he said.
'They're synonymous. You'll pay whatever it's worth. It's worth what you'll pay for it. What price are you willing to pay for this obsession of yours?' "
-Obsessed, Ted Dekker

God won't relent until He has me. Until He has you. We're his obsession. He won't give up, won't stop at anything to win us back.

As Sweeney said in that piece from Obsessed, something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. And for His obsession, God was willing to pay His life.

He won't relent. He won't give up until we choose to love Him back. He loves us enough to let Himself die for the mere chance that we might return His love. And so I will give my life over to loving Him back.

"...my heart is Yours."