So I’m listening to some beautiful
music and my mind wanders. (imagine that)
Funny how we worship love. (I know
I do, along with a whole lot of others)
I think that we have this in us and
we don’t even know that we’re doing it.
Love songs, great love – the kind
that has someone sacrificing their own life for another, willing to give up
everything to be with the one you love, like in City of Angels.
Giving up eternity to be with her
only to lose her anyway. The ultimate love tragedy. And he said it was worth
it.
Hollywood. Are they the ones that
initiate this ideal or are they simply reflecting the general consensus?
Because that's the lie.
That's the false hope all of us
romantics have always clung to.
The idea that we simply had to find
that one person who would be our everything and it would all be better. The
ache would be gone. We’d have happily ever after.
And when it does not happen (as it
never will) we conclude that we have just not found the right person.
In the beginning, Adam chose Eve
(actually, the best thing in creation, the pattern all women would be cut from)
- but she was not enough.
And when he chose her he put her
into the bondage of an unreachable expectation to fulfill his need.
Yet she knew she could not fulfill
it. She wanted to because she had the same need and so made it her goal to try
and be his everything.
[just an aside here. I think this was the beginning of
posing. Not believing we’re what we are meant to be so trying to be everything
else]
Meanwhile both of them looking to
each other for fulfillment and both of them knowing that as wonderful and
perfect as their union was, it was not enough.
It was never meant to be. Their
union was only to be played in concert with the ultimate union with God - and
nothing else would ever work.
Yet for centuries now men and women
have been doing the same thing.
(What is the definition of insanity again? Doing the same
thing over and over and each time expecting different
results?)
Seeking that ultimate intimacy and
never finding it in another.
So then rebellion, for me....
I knew I could not be what was
demanded of me, though I loved being pursued and loved, it made me angry and I
rebelled.
I mean – Don’t put that on me!!!
I’ll never measure up to that no matter what. It made me honestly hate men for
a time, until my heart screamed so loud I could not ignore it any
longer.
I’m sure the struggle for men is
much the same.
Not able to be what they know they
are expected and wanted to be, yet wanting so much to be her everything.
No wonder they get angry, become
distracted, or just check out.
The greatest tragic love stories
are all about this impossible fantasy.
The noble perfect man in search of
the beautiful perfect woman to make her his queen.
The beautiful perfect woman pining
away for her knight.
Part of us knows that this is what
love is. Part of us believes that it could be possible.
But most of us know it isn’t
possible between any two members of the human race of imperfect people.
Yet we desire it so greatly, that
we still search, the simple, brave, or foolhardy among us do, anyway.
But most settle for far less and go
on to live a life of heart medication of one sort or another to numb the pain of
the reality that life is nowhere near our dream.
We give up. Hope is lost and life
becomes a series of heart numbing affairs with whatever distraction we can find
to hide us from our lovelessness.
It does not work doing this
either.
To simply say that Jesus is the answer is so.... so
unsatisfying somehow.
What does he have to do with love anyway?
Right?
You mean to say that this hole in my heart is for him? I
thought it was for love, for romance.
Jesus is not about romance is he? Yes, yes, and yes!!! His
story is the greatest romance story ever told.
How can that be? I mean, he is, well, Holy. He is
untouchable. He is religious. Right?
As the Son of God, yes Holy, but also very much Wrong
answer! Because he did set that aside.
Jesus is walking talking breathing flesh and blood, just like
you and me, and he is also love incarnate.
Love more than any other romance or dream of fulfillment that
anyone could imagine.
His story is about his heart. It’s about the loss of his
beloved and the daring rescue to get her back.
The biggest lie that the church has swallowed is that Jesus
is not really – like us; human, normal, real.
Oh it’s a subtle lie, to be sure. But a lie, an insidious
lie nonetheless.
We’ve put Jesus on a sacred pedestal that makes him
unreachable somehow.
And in doing this we’ve effectively put God back behind the
veil and once again separated ourselves from Him even though He came to be with
us.
What the heck? Didn’t anyone ever wonder about that? I
mean, he came to be with us and now we’re pushing him away by making him
‘Holy’.
I don’t know about you but I think that’s kind of the
opposite effect he was looking for.
Yet we are so lost that we are convinced it is better to hide
from him than to believe in his love for us.
So we practice religion and try to kill our hearts.
How did we all become the Pharisees anyway? (the only
ones that he ever had issues with if you recall)
So the battle rages, and the story continues. Heart seeking
heart, love drawing love. Failure is not an option.
He is looking for those who still want truth. Those that
have not given up.
Those who will believe their hearts and follow the desire
that he placed there.
Because it will lead them to him.
If Jesus has not set your heart free and fulfilled that
desire for the perfect love, then you don’t know Him.
You simply do not know him.
You may have read a book about him, understood it to a
degree, assented to the ideals, and chosen to join the group and follow the
rules.
But reading a book, gathering knowledge, joining a group,
and following rules, does not make a relationship.
If knowledge were the answer, we would never have been
kicked out of Eden.
All reverence for him that is due as a Holy God, but he set
that aside to be with us...
I think that might be the biggest hint that we are important
to him. Very important.
He was in heaven but his love for us was too great to allow
the separation.
So he became a man and he came to us because we were captive
in our own prison.
We had rejected him in favor of ourselves and our desires but
we found we’d cut off our nose to spite our face.
And we have lived in a kind of limbo between fantasy and
desire, and the painful reality of our desperate need and seeking fulfillment
elsewhere.
Why oh why then do we continue to believe the lie and seek
for another when his is the only love that is enough.
Paul said these things over and over in many ways, and until
now it was only religious doctern and rhetoric to me. I didn’t get
it.
I’m sorry, but I really hate religious doctern. Even those
words I hate. Because what they are is separation from the reality of
Love.
In rethinking this all, I have come to the conclusion that
it’s good to worship love.
Not love – but – Love.
The Love.
His name is Jesus.
(by the way we can still have our love here and now with one
another,,, but with him there really is a ‘happily ever
after’)
Sin is a heart condition, not a thought action or deed.
It involves whatever keeps us from being united with God,
whatever we’ve chosen to take his place because we believe that he is not
enough.
We must honestly trust that his heart is good, that he
is love and that we are the object of that
love.
It’s all about the heart.
“Above all else, guard your heart.”
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