Recently, I was meeting with our College Life group at our parish and was reminded of something amazing. It was the Monday before Thanksgiving, and our theme for the night was – go figure – being thankful. Not a very original theme on my part, but the Holy Spirit was undoubtedly present in our conversation. We focused on Psalm 100: A Psalm of Thanksgiving. As we prayed through the psalm, different verses stood out to people for various reasons.

By this point, I had already read the psalm a handful of times. However, it wasn’t until someone else read it that I heard what God’s message was for me that evening.

“Know that the Lord is God, our maker to whom we belong, whose people we are, God’s well-tended flock.” Psalm 100:3

That is the verse the Holy Spirit placed on my heart. Specifically, the words that struck me the most were “our maker to whom we belong”. It’s something that I have known for a long time, but it was something that I needed to be reminded of. I belong to our Lord. You belong to our Lord. We all do. We get so busy being a part of this world that we sometimes forget whose we truly are. We are not part of this world. We simply live in it until we are called to be in His everlasting arms.

As our conversation continued, there were many stories of sunsets and different ways that God uses nature to send us messages. Sometimes we see them as “signs” that help us get through difficult moments, or they catch our eye amongst the chaos of the day to help us take a breath. This took me right back to those words “our maker to whom we belong.” Those sunsets, sunrises, flowers, or any other part of creation is our Lord’s way of romancing us. It’s His way of getting our attention so our focus is back on Him. You see, our God is wooing us. He wants every bit of our hearts. His desire is for us to love him with everything that we are.

This is something that girls can relate to easily. We love to be romanced by a guy. We want to be pursued. Guys, on the other hand, are used to being the romancers. But guys, make no mistake, God is after your hearts, too.

Our night ended in song that night, and I left the church with my heart full. The rest of the week was spent getting paperwork turned in at the office and spending time with family on Thanksgiving Day. Still, my heart was full.

But God wasn’t finished speaking to me yet. As I opened up Instagram on Saturday afternoon, these were the first words I read captioned under a picture, “Nothing is more powerful than beauty in a wicked world.” These words were pointing to the beauty in snow falling from the sky, and they pierced my heart in such a beautiful way. Again, I was reminded of God’s desire. He is after our hearts. He romances us with beauty only He can create.

This time, though, His message had something more. This world that I mentioned that we simply live in can be a very wicked place. There are so many things out there competing for our attention. Money, popularity, power . . . the list can go on and on. All those things won’t bring us true happiness, though. There is only One that can fill our hearts and make them overflow with happiness. No matter how wicked this world is, He is there sending us His messages of abundant love in that powerful beauty. All we have to do is open up our hearts to receive that love.

And guys, I must mention that the words in my quote were not posted by a girl on Instagram. Those words came from one of your brothers, Jimmy Kueber. God is, after all, romancing you all, too. We are all His beloved. Next time you see that powerful beauty, remember that God is letting you know that you are His desire.