Sometimes you have to get sucker punched right in the gut to get it. I mean, sometimes you just have to be within inches of sanity to realize what it is. Sometimes you have to come directly to the edge of the cliff and look over expecting that any second a mighty gust of wind is going to sweep over you and you'll fall head first over the cliff to know what it means. "It" is the love that God has for those He created.
I would probably, normally have compared His love to a Mother's love. Sure, it's that. The love you feel for your child is a different love than any other love you have for those in your life. It's a fiercely protective love. It is self sacrificing. It exists from the beginning. His love is even more than that.
Some would compare His love to that of a husband and wife. The tender, companionship type of love that chooses you above all else in this world. The love of a person who knows the real you- the horrid, hateful you, the kind, gentle you, the funny you, the crazy you, the wretched you, the near-perfect you- and loves you no matter what. Chooses you even still.
God's love is both. God's love is everything love is supposed to be. Everything love can be. God's love exists no matter what your heart's current attachment may be. His love is for you always.
The most profound characteristic of His love is how quickly it heals. Not how quickly it heals you, but how quickly it heals itself. Day after day we stomp on God's heart. We make lofty promises in prayer and then walk away, as if God is left in our bedroom not to witness our day, and we go out and do the opposite of what we promised. God wasn't left in our bedroom where we left our prayerful promises. He sees every move we make. Every sin we commit. We claim our love for Him as eagerly as teenagers who have discovered their first infatuation. We repeat what we've heard our Pastors and family and friends say in their prayers as if just a repetition of "the right words" even matters to God. We are deceitfully fulfilled by our chatter as if we have accomplished a task on our daily "to-do" list. Then we go out and we commit our affairs. We chase our lusts and desires. We go after the things we idolize. We seek that which makes us feel good. We work on bolstering our self-esteem, making more money to buy more stuff, shopping to soothe our souls, we complain about our jobs demanding too much, we gossip about people to make ourselves feel better, and at the end of the day we return home. We watch tv, eat dinner (sometimes throwing up a quick prayer to God that might be the equivalent of a "high five", thanks for the meal), and then we go to bed.
There we find God where we left Him, forgetting that He accompanied us through our entire day. We offer our thanks for the day, toss in a few "please be with"s for those in our lives that are suffering, and ask that God help us through tomorrow. Then God cries. He is the scorned lover that wasn't waiting at home oblivious to our wayward heart. He is the only eyewitness account of our entire day's endeavors. He is crushed over and over again. But, with His new mercy each morning, He continues to love us. He continues to forgive us. He knows exactly what we have our hearts set to do even before we know and He still chooses love.
It isn't until we experience the kind of kick-in-the-gut situation that we get it. I have been faced with such a situation. I have gone through such a situation recently, in fact. You love someone so much and for some reason they don't get it. They can't understand your love for them. Suddenly, you're rocked, riddled by pain that you just can't understand. You struggle between the world's point of view and God's. You stop and think about the fact that He has given everything and anything just to be with you and how could you offer less to those you love. You experience rejection like you've never known and you remember those mindless prayers you offered up and the God of all love that still took you back every night. You are torn between pain and the punishment you want to inflict and the love you have and the knowledge of all that God has done for you. You either make the sacrifice and choose to continue to love or you turn and walk away to "save" your heart. I sacrificed.
The most unexpected return in all of this is to find out that the sacrifice proved to be the blessing. And you can only know that because you chose it. You can see how it would have turned out if you had taken any other path only because you didn't. Putting aside the anger, the hurt, the claims you have with which you could charge someone. You find that it was better. In the moment before your decision is made you just think that walking away from that person will make all of the pain and hurt go away. But when you don't walk away, you realize that walking away would have produced a new world of pain. It's so mind-boggling to find that choosing forgiveness actually healed the pain. How can it be so?
I have learned to listen for God's will. Actually, I had already learned to really listen before this situation and if not for such learning I would never have made the right decision. I don't mean to talk in twists and turns but I will explain.
About a year ago I was, let's say, tipped off that I'd be out of a job come January. I was quite preggers, as you may or may not recall, and it was quite scary to think of not having a job right around the time I expected to return to work. Knowing this, I started looking for a new job that I could start after maternity leave. I knew of another employer and I attempted to contact this employer's president. I did a few times to no avail. I turned to God and said, "Lord, I know Your will is best for my life. How could I not want what's best? You can see things that I can't and you know why something it not best that may look good to me now. So, if you want me to have this job, then let the employer's president respond. If she does not, then I know it isn't what you have for me." Before you go all, "look at her being so faithful to God", there was an even bigger lesson to be learned here. See, she did call me back. She told me that I was seriously underpaid and I deserved so much more. She wanted me to take whatever time I needed for my leave and start whenever I was ready. She also wanted to take with me one of my co-workers as we'd make the perfect team. After I hung up, I called my co-worker to tell her the good news. Not long after that conversation, my co-worker told me that she would be starting with them shortly, and she did. What I didn't tell anyone was that I didn't feel comfortable about going to work for them. From the second I hung up the phone with the employer's president, I was on a mission to convince myself it was right. After all, I specifically told God not to have her call me unless it was His will, right? Not exactly.
The unsettled feeling gnawed at me constantly. Each time it did I would talk to a friend or a family member reciting all of the promises the employer's president made to me. Of course, that person would tell me I was so lucky to have such a great opportunity. And each time, that gnawing feeling would all but subside. But it wasn't long and it was back. And each time it came back it brought friends.
So what did this mean? This was supposed to be a gift from God, right? Why was I so uneasy about it? Well, I didn't ask God not to let her call if it wasn't His will. I just asked that she call if it was His will. Her interest in me and my co-worker turned out to be His will after all, but it was only part of it. See, what God really had planned for me was to take my co-worker's position she was leaving behind, something that had never crossed my mind. Until the day it was offered to me, the day my co-worker announced she was leaving. The moment it was offered to me I accepted and that unsettled feeling was gone. However, the offer from the other employer was still very much on the table. In fact, they were expecting me to work for them. I still had to tell them "no", and in telling them "no" I would have to tell those that I had worked so hard to convince (while trying to convince myself), that it wasn't the right place for me. I know I followed God's will.
So when this more current situation arose, I already knew how to listen for God's will. Let me tell you, sometimes, you have to listen very, very carefully. The world is a very loud place and those in it have very loud voices. God's voice is very small, very quiet. I think it's because He wants us to want to hear His voice and in order to do so, you have to shut all other noise out. He wants our undivided attention. I wouldn't have known how to put my hurt aside to continue with love if God hadn't already taught me how to listen to His voice when all other voices threaten to drown Him out. He was clear. He is message is always love. But love isn't always easy and that's when His strength and His example are what carries us through to the other side.
Lessons learned: Love isn't easy but it's still the blessing and it's worth it. God's lessons are hard and sometimes painful, but they are always most rewarding when we listen for Him.
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