Eventually it happened, I grew up and my life is now filling up with the excitement of celebrating the blessing of love and commitment that those who are dear to me have found.Through the whirlwind of it all I have managed to stay single and happy. It is not that I never want to get married or have sworn off men forever, (though I do often joke about it) but rather I am somewhat selfishly pursuing a relationship with God and a deeper understanding of what perfect love is. My journey started when several people who I dearly loved were taken away from me and I began to question why I should risk the pain of love and ask what kind of love I was giving and have been given. I evaluated the desires and attachments of My Heart and found that my relationship with God was greatly lacking; and thus I set off to try to find out how God loves me and how I was made to love Him in return.
I thought it would be fun for me to celebrate February and Valentines with you by sharing what God has been teaching me about love - of all kinds; strong, crazy, lost, impatient, romantic perfect love. I'm starting this series out by asking you a question:
How do you love God?
It is easy to define how one serves God or how one praises Him; but is it even possible for us to love God? Sure, I can say that my actions are motivated by a love for God, but taking a step back and looking at the relationships people throughout history have had with God, the same behavior was driven by fears. We go about our lives doing good things, maybe even great things, praising God trying to redirect the glory to Him, but is this because we love God or because we are afraid of Him? Afraid that we are too awful for Him or afraid that God could become angry and turn His back on us if something is or isn't done; afraid of the possibility wasting our gifts, afraid of being alone. God is great and powerful, and His righteous wrath really, really scares me. It would be foolish to ignore these traits of God, and even the apostles acknowledged His power. So how do you love such a great a terrible God?
The early Christians had to answer this very question in an environment that made them appear like they were ignorantly walking in a loins den. The world in which they lived in worshiped several gods and goddesses whose mystical powers was thought to cause great punishment if they ever became displeased. There were statues and temples for these gods everywhere and the people were so scared of offending any powerful being that they erected a alter to a 'unknown god'. It is no wonder that the idea of loving God caused thoughts of 'they're crazy' or 'their god obviously isn't powerful' to be made and voiced. In one of his letters, Paul assures the Christians in Corinthia that they weren't crazy but were blessed to know what it was to fear the Lord (2 Corinthias 5:11).
There is a very big difference between fearing God and being afraid of God. When you are afraid of God everything is driven on uncertainty and the panic of pain, but the fear of God is based on knowing God so well that you are in awe of Him; but the fear of the Lord is much more than knowledge if Him and His traits, because stacked up facts don't amount to much and have the potential to turn into hate. John explains that knowing God, openly accepting Him and pursuing a greater understanding of Him, leads to loving God. (John 4:7-19)
For the longest time I tied a string around my heart and let God hold the other end of the string instead of letting Him hold my heart in His hands. I would follow the tugs on my heart to behave and love others as God would love them instead of loving them with God.
It is quite impossible for me to hug God, but I can learn about Him and seek to know Him more. To have my amazement about Him push me to know Him better; to become yet more amazed and want to know Him even more. To know Him so well that I can walk closer and closer to Him until I move perfectly along with Him (Micah 6:8).
Now this is love!
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