You Fill Up My Senses 12-7-25

This morning I woke up a couple times, drifting back to sleep and then becoming aware of a song… and in the almost fully awake, the song changed... and I smiled. The tempo was a big shift, and then I started focusing on the words and let out a contented sigh, relaxing into the rest and peace that can seem so elusive during the busyness of the daytime. The first song was drumming and marching through my head, not unpleasantly, just a more active beat: “But I would walk five hundred miles and I would walk five hundred more…”

I came upstairs to begin my morning prayer and reading time, not remembering any of the other words, just feeling the rhythm, and as I started up the stairs, the song shifted to John Denver’s song “You Fill Up My Senses” and it immediately shifted from just a song in my head to a love song from me to God: “You fill up my senses, like a night in the forest, like a mountain in springtime, like a walk in the rain, like a storm in the desert, like a sleepy blue ocean, You fill up my senses, come fill me again.”! Smiling and reaching for my laptop, it occurred to me that the first song beat was more “driven” – the staccato beat is hard to ignore and easy to tap your feet to (and who doesn’t like listening to Scottish accents?) And then looking at the rest of the chorus, “Just to be the man who walked one thousand miles to fall down at your door” hit differently in light of where this train of thought was headed. The commentary below the lyrics said this “expresses a strong commitment to love, suggesting that the singer would go to great lengths for someone special.” Yeah, that tracks especially deeply this morning, as I connect this with Jesus’ walk to Golgotha, “falling down at the door” of my heart and knocking, asking to be invited in, proving He did in fact love us that much! And before that could go any further in my thoughts, Annie’s Song (You Fill Up My Senses) started in and it felt very natural to compare the two in the different ways this could be taken as worship songs! In BOTH directions!

Like we’ve noted earlier, so many “love songs” could be sung as love songs to God, not just a person. When we feel close to God, we make such grand boasts about how much we love Him. And while we can mean it, it’s even more impactful if we see it in the other direction, turning the songs around so that it’s God singing to us is a perspective-shifting truth. He does say in Zephaniah 3:17, “He rejoices over you with singing” so it’s hard to miss the invitation in light of all He’s already done for us: “Come let me love you, Let me give my life to you, Let me drown in your laughter, Let me die in your arms, Let me lay down beside you, Let me always be with you, Come let me love you, Come love me again!”

How can we NOT see this running parallel to John chapter 15 where Jesus tells us to abide in Him, as He abides in us, and we will “bear much fruit”, “remain in His love”, “be His disciples”, that our “joy will be complete”… sounds like “abiding in Him as He abides in us” lyrics to me! Once we absorb the truth of this, of how much God gave to love us, to give His life for us, to give us the gift of laughter and joy, to die for us, to be with us no matter where we are and what we’re going though (the Psalms are FULL of this imagery!), the invitation can then be echoed in our response to Him. It may sound strange if we’ve never thought of it in this way before, but isn’t that what it says in 1 John 3 and 4 it’s all about “See what great love the Father has lavished on us...by this we know love, because He laid down His life for us...if God so loved us, let us love one another, … for God is love... We love Him because He first loved us.”

So going into today, I’m beginning with Jesus walking “500 miles,... and... 500 more”, to make sure I know He’s “Gonna Be” the One Who’s always with me, and when I need to re-orient myself in His Peace, Grace and Joy, I’m going to stop, take a breath, and let Him “Fill Up My Senses”, hearing Him sing this song over me, and then echo it back to Him: “… Let me always be with You, You fill up my senses, come fill me again!”