Recently I was contemplating Paul’s words in Romans 8:38–39 which ring with a kind of holy defiance: there is nothing in the universe with the power to separate us from God’s love. Not death. Not life’s troubles. Not the shadows that move through the world or the shadows that move through our own hearts. Nothing above us or beneath us. Nothing now or later. Nothing at all.
If this is true, and it is, why do we so often live as though it isn’t?
Why do we shrink back into the corners of our own self‑interest, protecting ourselves from a God who has never once withheld love from us? Why do we walk through our days as though the ground beneath our feet is ordinary, when every moment is charged with the presence of the One who holds us fast?
Maybe it’s because we forget that God’s love is not fragile. It doesn’t waver with our moods or collapse under our failures. It doesn’t retreat when we retreat. It doesn’t depend on our strength, our clarity, or our worthiness. God’s love is the steady ground beneath everything, holy ground, even when we don’t recognize it.
And maybe we hide because we fear that if God truly saw us, the love might fade. But Paul insists: God already sees us, fully, tenderly, and completely. And still, nothing can distance us from the love poured out through Jesus.
So the invitation is simple and brave. Step out of the corner, lift your eyes, and walk as one who is already held.
Because the love that will not let us go is the same love that calls us into the open, into freedom, into trust, into a life lived on holy ground.
Smitten With Goodness 