Inseparable

A tree comes down in a storm and the root plate lifts with it, and what you see in the hole is that the roots went sideways rather than down, following the water table, wrapping under the neighbour's wall. Nobody knew. The tree looked the same as the others until the wind came.

That is roughly how most people think about God's love in their own case. It looks like everyone else's from the outside, and privately you suspect the anchoring is shallower, and that one more storm will show it.

So look at what Paul actually checks. He does not test the tree; he tests the ground. Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature. That is a systematic sweep: the two states a person can be in, the ranks of spiritual beings, the whole timeline in both directions, the vertical extremes, and then a catch-all clause for anything left. Read it against the list four verses up, tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, several of which happened to Paul personally. He is not promising they stay away. He is saying they cannot cut the cord.

And notice the one item that never appears on the list. Yourself. Paul is not being careless; he is being precise, because the love in question is in Christ Jesus our Lord, and it is anchored at that end, not at yours.

Say the worst true thing about yourself, the one you would never write down, and then add the clause: and this is not on the list. Then, if it would not cost them anything, get in touch with the person you have assumed wrote you off.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 61 is Pride Deceived Thee (Obadiah 1:3).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna