If you don’t love somebody, it gets annoying when they tell you what to do or what to feel. When you love them you get pleasure from their pleasure, and it makes it easy to serve.
– Donald Miller, “Blue Like Jazz”
When it comes to God, I feel like a parrot. I can easily talk of His love—yet so can a seminarian’s parrot talk Greek. How many times in my life have I obeyed His laws and spoken eloquently of His love, yet completely lacked the genuine, deep feeling of it; that feeling which sustains our actions of obedience and makes obeying His laws truly delightful?
I long for the following to be true of my daily life:
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. “
– Psalm 1:1-2 (ESV)
It’s hard for me to grasp why God commands our emotions sometimes. Like when he commands joy, or delight. That’s like being depressed and someone telling you to just be happy. I want to be blessed, I want my delight to be in the law of the Lord. But how can I do that genuinely? Especially when I’m suffering?
I recently realized that this Psalm 1 kind of delight can only come from a genuine relationship with, and love of, God. And then I wondered whether I ever had that.
How can I say I have a genuine relationship with God when I rarely pray to Him, nor read His word? Sure—I can fit Him into a 30-minute daily devotional session, turning Him into a checkbox so that I can feel like a “good Christian”, but what is my heart posture behind that action?
As Paul Washer said, it’s like a husband coming home from a long day of work, going into the closet where he keeps his wife, and proceeding to finally talk to her and spend quality time with her, just to ultimately leave her in the closet and go about his merry way. A mere 30 minutes, out of a 24 hour day. (If we wanted to we would…)
After he shared that anecdote, I wondered… how should the rest of that story unfold? How should the wife respond to this egregious, abusive behavior from her narcissistic husband?
Well, according to the love of God as it is written in scripture, if her role here is the same role that God plays in my own life, then those 30 minutes remain the most precious part of her day. And that remains true for her every single day.
That I might merely look toward her closet door brings her deep joy. And when I leave that closet, she holds no grudges against me. And despite her consistent and faithful love to me, I remain happy to leave her there and forget about her for the rest of my day. Once in a while, I might remember the weight and the glory of her love for me; maybe when a preacher, in a passionate and fiery sermon, reminds me that I am loved by her more deeply and more truly than I can ever imagine, that she eagerly waits for me every day. Then the guilt might flood in. I might break down in tears, and repent. But inevitably, I’ll do everything all over again. Because at the end of the day, I am a sinner. I am selfish. I am self-absorbed.
Through this perspective, I realized that God loves me and even longs for me in the same way young Werther longed for Charlotte, with the same passion Romeo had for Juliette, heaping the same praise which Solomon sings for his bride. As weird and as uncomfortable as it feels to say this—especially as a reformed Christian man attending a Presbyterian church—it is simply true that God sees me as beautiful and lovely.
Behold, you are beautiful, my love, behold, you are beautiful!
Your eyes are doves behind your veil.
…
You have captivated my heart, my sister, my bride;
you have captivated my heart with one glance of your eyes,
with one jewel of your necklace.
– Song of Solomon 4:1-9 (ESV)
Sometimes, I feel like if God were personified more as a woman—his love personified as that of a mother’s—then I, as a son and as a man, would better understand this kind of love of God.
For example, my sister and I experience God so differently. When she talks about Him, it’s like she’s talking about a whole other person. She experiences Him so passionately and lovingly; can easily envision the doting eyes that a girl-dad has for their beautiful and precious daughter.
Meanwhile, when I think about and talk about my relationship with God, it’s full of logic, and devoid of emotion. Because don’t fathers on earth dote on their daughters more than their sons? My dad has never looked at me with the kind of loving eyes my mom gives me. What son has experienced that kind of love and open affection from their father?
When I watch people like my mom or my sister talk about their relationship with God, a part of me judges them. I think, God is more than just love, you know! He is also a just and powerful and fearful being! But really, deep down, I am jealous, thinking, I wish I could experience God’s love for me like that—to feel truly and deeply that He delights in me and sees me as beautiful.
Because for me, a father’s love has always felt more like discipline and duty and pride, not tenderness and warmth and love.
But the Scripture says that God loves me in that way. And how joyous that truth is, how delightful that is.
So I will end with a song of praise. Because I want to praise the God who pursues me and longs for me and loves me in a manner that I am so prone to forgetting.
May I delight in Your laws, Lord, for I know that the fulfillment of your law pleases you. For you are a holy and just and righteous God, and you have called us to live a certain way, that You might be glorified through us.
I will fail again and again. But because Jesus paid the ultimate price, fulfilling the law and the prophets by dying for my sins and then raising himself back to life, when you see me, you see Christ in me—your one and only son whom you loved so much. Because He died, we live. Because He lives, there is always hope. Hallelujah! Hallowed be your name, forever!
marginalia 