I have been reading the book When Heaven Weeps by Ted Dekker. This book (a functional story based on Hosea) is a demonstration of Gods love for us. Well, I just have to say that God has amazing timing! Today, I finished that book, but not only that, I also watched the movie The Passion of the Christ. Through all that God is teaching me a lot about love.
For years now I have been looking for love. But through the past week I have discovered that I have been looking for this thing that our messed up world calls love. We live in a world that people fall in and out of "love" like the change of fashion. You know, when we were kids everyone had straight legged jeans, then only flared jeans were popular, now you have to have skin tight skinny jeans. These days a couple is "madly in love" with each other, and within a week they are with new people. So much for love. News flash for you, that is what we call a crush! Just like every few years you have to get a new style of jeans, every few weeks people find the need to have a new "love". Well, I always sat back and watched these people thinking that I would never be like that, I want a true love that will last 50, 60, 100 years if I could only be so lucky to live that long. But, I am just starting to realize that true love is so much more...
When Heaven Weeps is about a famous Christian author, Jan Jovic, who meets a junkie, Helen, and falls madly in love with her but he does not understand why. Dekker so vividly describes Jan's feeling for Helen, but it is so different from the love by the worlds standards. It is true, never ending, passionate love, a love that would do absolutely anything to stay together. A few times through out the book, when Jan experiences this passionate love for her, he hears the voice of God speaking to him, saying, "It is only a whisper of what I feel, Jan." I personally can not imagine this. For years, I have been searching for this fake thing they call love, and to imagine a passionate love that is more, much more than I have ever thought, only to hear God clearly say to me that it is only the slightest whisper of what he feels for me?...
If you would have asked me, just yesterday, to describe what Jesus went through just for me, I would have given you the Sunday school version of the death of Christ, "...and yes, I know that I will never actually know what it was like..." blah blah blah.... you know the basics. But until tonight, it was just a story. A story that can never actually be told the proper way. You have to see it to understand. It has to be a picture being painted right in front of you. A sculpture being formed with you watching. A life unfolding before your eyes. This movie has put a whole new reality into the the story that everyone already knows. It was hard to watch and I cried..... a lot. But not only that, I am ashamed, because Jesus willingly went through all of that for me, but I bury my face in my pillow and can't even watch a depiction of it. He died a terrible death, the kind that no amount of words could ever describe, and he did that for us, each one of us. That is love. That is real love. That is pure, passionate love.
How could anyone love me that much, let alone the creator of the universe, who knows my every thought?
Me?
He loves ME like that?
Yet, somehow, he does. He loves me with passion, with desire, with willingness. He loves me with the same unfathomable love that held him on the cross tht day. And he continues to love me, all of me, everyday, even when I constantly fail him. I will never be able to understand this love, and I certainly could never do anything to deserve. How is that type of love possible? It is mind boggling.
I am a human, drenched in my own sin. I come to God, begging him to shower me with his grace, clean up my wounds, and accept me, even though I failed him. He does, because he loves me with the passionate love that you fix what it is broken, not the fake love that you throw it away with the slightest sign of imperfection. So, he cleans up my scrapes and bruises, and right when I am almost all the way healed, I run and jump in my pool of sin. Again, I get drenched and all scratched up (often worst than before), and once again, I go running to God, asking him to clean me up, and he dose. He gives me the delicate care that I need, getting the rocks and dirt out of my deep cuts. Dose it hurt? It most defiantly does, but I allow him to, because I know it will make me a better person. But right when I am almost healed, I run. But the moment I go back, he accepts me again, knowing that in a matter of time I will be gone again. Every time I run, it hurts him. He puts time and energy into loving me, and I go right back to my sin. I don't want to hurt him, and I certainly don't try to, but it happens. It is the worldly nature that has a hold of me, and I am not using that as an excuse, I am just stating the truth. That is how this messed up world is, and it is not going to change anytime soon. But only someone who loves with true love, true passion can accept someone after messing up so many time. He is willing to do this time and time again, but not only that, he died that terrible death knowing that he would have to do this time and time again.
The pure, passionate love my father has for me.
