Strength To Comprehend

“… that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” – Ephesians 3:19

God’s love is so much beyond any love we have ever received. One commentator writes, “In the Greek, these four dimensions are governed by one article and are regarded as a unity. They are a totality, which is meant to evoke the immensity of the love of Christ. What Paul is saying is that all the expanse of creation cannot contain this love. If Christ’s love was measurable its height would exceed the heavens, its depth would penetrate the deepest seas, its breadth would span the universe, its length would be unending.” This love surpasses knowledge; yet Paul prays that we can know it.

What strikes me is that Paul’s main request is that we have strength. Why does it take strength to comprehend God’s love? Maybe because it is easier to settle for smaller loves. Stephen Chbosky writes in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, “We receive the love we think we deserve.” Maybe because in order to be “filled” with this love we must first be emptied of pride or self-sufficiency; we must first be able to name our longing for love. Maybe because the idea of “love” has been so parlayed into something we feel that we must have fortitude to believe it exists independent of our feelings. Nouwen writes, “You must believe in the yes that comes back when you ask, ‘Do you love me?’ You must choose this yes even when you do not experience it… You have to trust the place that is solid, the place where you can say yes to God’s love even when you do not feel it… keep saying, ‘God loves me, and God’s love is enough.’ You have to choose the solid place over and over again.”

This strength does not come from ourselves. The power to comprehend this love is granted us through the Holy Spirit in our inner being (3:16). We receive it like a plant drinking up moisture and minerals from the ground; like a building resting upon a solid foundation. This power to know the unknowable comes to us from the God who is able to do more abundantly than all that we think (3:20). May Paul’s prayer be true for us today.