song that has been running through my head

There is this great Rich Mullins song that has been running through my head the last few days. It is a great song about the motivation and purpose of our life...the love of God. I remember that Amy Carmichael's life motto was "love to live, live to love" and I have certainly tried to adopt it as mine too. But this song makes me tear up as I think about how much loving tears apart the flesh, how it makes me vulnerable to betrayal, how it gives me friends that are closer than family (and how it might take those friends away). It isn't boxed, it isn't just given to those who kneel...it is flung to the farthest reaches in the beauty of this world and it cuts me to my core as all selfishness is burned in it's path. The Love of God is not this hallmark card of good wishes- it is a raging fury that catches me and hurls me forward into yet more love.

There's a wideness in God's mercy
I cannot find in my own
And He keeps His fire burning
To melt this heart of stone
Keeps me aching with a yearning
Keeps me glad to have been caught
In the reckless raging fury
That they call the love of God

Now I've seen no band of angels
But I've heard the soldiers' songs
Love hangs over them like a banner
Love within them leads them on
To the battle on the journey
And it's never gonna stop
Ever widening their mercies
And the fury of His love

Oh the love of God
And oh, the love of God
The love of God

Joy and sorrow are this ocean
And in their every ebb and flow
Now the Lord a door has opened
That all Hell could never close
Here I'm tested and made worthy
Tossed about but lifted up
In the reckless raging fury
That they call the love of God