Crater Lake National Park, OR

Ephesians 3:17-18 NLV

I pray that Christ may live in your hearts by faith. I pray that you will be filled with love. I pray that you will be able to understand how wide and how long and how high and how deep His love is.

Around 5500 BC, North Americans were starting to settle down from a gathering life into a life of subsistence farming. They were perfecting their weaving skills for clothing, sandals, and baskets for storage as well as transportation.  Although it would be 1000s of years before the Klamath people would have written communications, on the day Mount Mazama became Crater Lake, they might have penned Psalm 97:5, “The mountains melt like wax before the Lord, before the Lord of all the earth.”

Mount Mazama towered at over 12,000 feet tall. Conversely, Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the United States at almost 1,950 feet, but the caldera is 2,150 feet deep and six miles wide. Known as Lake Giiwas, which means deep blue water by the Klamath People, the water is some of the purest in the world. Around 500,000 people come each year to gaze at the mesmerizing deep blue water, but the visage is surreal. Photos cannot do Crater Lake justice, and the beauty, depth, width, and visual splendor are awe inspiring in person. Still, compared to the beauty, depth, width, and splendor of the Lord’s love for us, Crater Lake cannot even begin to compare.

When the Apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians, he used lofty language in hopes that we could begin to grasp the extent of God’s love for us. Much like the sensory overload Crater Lake gives our eyes, it’s next to impossible to fully grasp the magnitude of God’s love for us. Romans 5:7-8 NLV tells us, “No one is willing to die for another person, but for a good man someone might be willing to die. But God showed His love to us. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  And this magnanimous love and sacrifice of God’s only Son is again confirmed in John 3:16 NLV, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. Whoever puts his trust in God’s Son will not be lost but will have life that lasts forever.”

God’s love for us will last forever. Even if the crater should fill in or the lake spill out, God will still be loving us. Then when He calls us home to Him, we may have a chance to comprehend His endless, omnipotent love.