I am going to write a blog about love on Valentine’s Day. Original, right? I fought the idea at first – but not because of how expected the theme would be. I fought it because it will involve being open and vulnerable. I will have to say some things about my relationship with God that I am not always comfortable with. Maybe some of my sentiments are similar to your’s. Maybe God wants to encourage you through the things that I am working through. Or maybe the writing process is what He intends to use to allow me to process through the ways that He is constantly pursuing me.
I have never questioned the love of God as my Heavenly Father. A father is something that I can relate to. I have seen it. I have felt it. My earthly father is a great example of love and support and protection. I know that I can run to him when I am sad or afraid. I know that he delights in my joy and in my creativity. Through this my view of God’s fatherly love has come very naturally. I am learning to appreciate this more deeply as many of my sQuadmates have shared the pain that they have experienced in this aspect. My heart breaks for them, but I am rejoicing in the restoration that I see our Heavenly Father doing.
Philos, or brotherly, love has been prevalent in this season of my life, too. Traveling with 55 twenty-somethings catapults you into wonderful – and at times challenging – relationships. Learning to love your neighbor as yourself becomes imperative. I think that Peter would be proud of how our sQuad has embraced this type of love and experienced tender affection toward each other.
Agape love, though unfathomable in our humanness, is another form of God-love that has always had such a strong presence in my thinking. Agape is a Greek word that describes the unconditional love that God has for man. It is a love that goes beyond our sin and unworthiness. It is a love that brings hope to a hopeless world. The word agape has been incorporated in so many things around me. The wonderful daycare center that I spent many years working at had agape in the name. It is a place where the staff daily exemplifies God’s unconditional love to the the children and families that it serves. When we arrived in Nepal I was excited to learn that we are serving with Agape Mission, an organization that serves women and children at risk with this same type of love.
But then there is this little book of the Bible titled The Song of Solomon. What a strange little book full of goats and fruit and teeth and towers. What? And then you run into these embarrassingly sensual conversations between lovers. It’s like the 50 Shades of Grey of Bible times. (Ok, that’s maybe a bit extreme and a whole other conversation. There’s a great article on relevantmagazine.com about it. Check it out.) Anyway, this book is not one that I was too familiar with. I appreciate the poetry and think love is beautiful, but that’s where my understanding of this book stopped. I’ve heard people talk about it being a description of the church’s relationship with Christ or a description what God intends for marriage. These things never felt personal to me. While we were at debrief this past month our squad coach separated us out as women and spoke on intimacy with Christ in relation to the Song of Solomon. Honestly, I didn’t get it. I know Jesus loves me, but this romance and pursuit aspect is tricky. I think that some of my hesitancy comes from carrying such a humanized version of romance. My human heart struggles with insecurity and jealousy. Although God has blessed me with protection and growth in my romantic relationships, they have ended. They aren’t unconditional. At some point the pursuit is stopped, or one party feels unworthy, or my heart is fickle. This year of intentionally being single has actually been a relief, a freedom from the pressure that can come with seeking a romantic relationship. Because of this, looking at Christ as the lover of my soul, pursuer of my heart, and first love doesn’t come as easily as the other forms of love that I relate to. I even felt moments of jealousy as our coach spoke and other girls affirmed that this is how they view Christ. During group squad worship I would sometimes wonder if I wasn’t connecting as deeply as those around me. It was as if something in me thought that Jesus was constricted by the same things as the human heart- that His pursuit and longing for one person somehow degraded his desire for another. My mind knows that this is ridiculous and so that night I began praying that God would reveal His heart for me in this way. I didn’t have any idea what this would look like. Truthfully I don’t even know that had the faith that He would do it.
At exactly 3:00 in the morning I woke up. Not just the momentary, eyes-open for a second, roll back over, wake up. I woke up feeling like someone had Samuel-style called me by name. I burrowed a little further into my sleeping bag and tried to fall back asleep, but I kept getting tangled up in the headphone cord that I had left attached to my phone before bed. It’s impressive that I didn’t wake my teammates up, because the sound of a sleeping pad practically alerts entire rooms to even the slightest restlessness. As I was trying to detangle myself I realized that there was music playing from the headphones. I put one ear in and found a calming, worshipful instrumental track playing. In this moment I felt Jesus whisper so clearly, “Psst. Hey. Hey you. It’s me. I woke you up to just be with Me. Everyone else is asleep, but I am craving us-time. Stay awake and sit with me.” Ummm…okay. The creator of the universe just woke me up intentionally because He wanted to spend time with me. It wasn’t a huge, firework, flood kind of feeling. It was a tender, intimate request to rest in Him and His love for me. I let the music play and the next track was a love song that sang “Stir in me a love that’s deep, a love that’s wide, a love that’s sweet and help me Lord to never keep it to myself. If my heart should dimly burn and if my feet should fail to run call my name and I’ll come right back to you. Cuz’ there’s no fear in love. There’s no fear in love.” These lyrics sank in so deeply and I wiggled my hand out of the confines of my mummy bag and laid it open next to me. The remainder of the track sang “ I want to stay close to you, it’s really that simple. I want to stay close to you, as simple as this song. I want to stay close to you, it’s really that simple. I want to stay close to you, my whole life long.” My heart was so enveloped in love and it literally felt like Jesus had slipped His hand into my open one. (I just paused to make sure that my teammate, Krystle, didn’t reach over in the middle of the night. Good news – she didn’t.) Jesus knows my heart and woke me up at 3:00 am so that we could share a moment of intimacy. It didn’t look like anyone else or have any hint of selfishness. It was a unhindered, patient, fearless kind of intimacy that only comes through Jesus. I am so grateful for a Savior, Creator, Father, and Friend who also knows my heart better that anyone else and desires intimacy with me.
Remember in the first paragraph when I wrote that maybe God wanted to use the writing process to allow me to process through how He is pursuing me? It’s not a maybe anymore. I am assured that God is pursuing your heart as intimately and fervently as He is pursuing me and I hope that you sense that in deeper ways each day, but I think this blog was for me. As I reread and do some editing my heart is so full and amazed at Jesus’ continuous pursuit of me. There is no more fulfilling way to spend a Valentine’s Day.
