Lindsey and I have always been hopeless romantics. We used to breathe in romance novels like oxygen and live on petits fours and tea. By the time I was six I had written about my first crush in my diary and planned out our love story. And every time I took a walk in my backyard I used to hope that I would run into a handsome stranger (which actually ended up happening!....sort of....)
Anyway, when I was in my early teens I really had no interest in God because He didn't satisfy my craving for romance at all. I had come to the conclusion that it was my duty to go to church, give Him some of my money, sing about Him once in awhile and read the Bible every day, but there was nothing between us.
At least, from my perspective.
It wasn't until I was fifteen that all of this radically changed. It's a very long story about how it all came about, but, basically, I found out that He was in love with me. And it wasn't just, "I love you because you give Me money," sort of love- I discovered, through a perfectly scripted series of events, that He was passionately, whole-heartedly, jealously in love with me.
So what does this look like in a practical, everyday application? I haven't exactly found out yet.
You see, the problem is, I know that He's in love with me...I just forget about it all of the time. But when I do remember? Life is like a fairytale. Sometimes He'll take me on dates, or show me something lovely in my backyard that I've never seen before, or introduce me to an extraordinary person, or make me feel special in some small, but very significant way. And after it happens, all He does is smile and say, "I love you." But that's more than enough.
So what do you need God to be today? Calling Him something specific, whether it be Father, Comforter, Lover, Brother, Friend or anything in-between, isn't putting Him in a box. Rather, it is accepting His ability to be all that we could ever need.
The other day I discovered the following poem in "The Journals of Jim Elliot," a book that I wrote about a few posts ago. It intrigued me that it was written by Jim himself, a man who must've had an understanding of the holy, passionate love that God has for us. And, for anyone who doesn't see this perspective as Biblical, following the poem is a perfect example of our King's love for us taken straight out of the Bible.
Or you can just read Song of Solomon.
"Kiss me, Heavenly Lover, in the morning.
Be Thou the first to sweeten
This whole day's speech with that warm, honeyed touch
Of Thy caress.
And tenderly, while yet each eye lies unawaked,
Come lightly and impart to them
For day's long hour a heavenly set
To see all things as through a lover's eyes,
By soft caresses from the lips of Him
Who lives in Paradise.
Kiss me, Christ of Beauty, here alone
The two of us, while dawn
Steals down the slopes and
Wakens day's bright eye to smile on me.
Let not its luring draw me from the sense
That I belong to the One
Whose first embrace full ravishes
Who has kissed the son."
"'Later, I was passing by again. I looked at you. I saw that you were old enough for love. So I got married to you and took good care of you. I covered your naked body. I took an oath and made a firm promise to you. I entered into a covenant with you. And you became Mine,' announces the Lord and King." Ezekiel 16:8
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