Thursday, March 13, 2014

The L Word part 1

What does it mean to be in love with God? What is love?  When I said at the beginning of Lent that I wanted to fall in love again, did I realize the statement I was making?  These are questions I have been musing over for a couple of days.
I think I'll take the answers slowly.

First of all I think the answer to the third question: When I said at the beginning of Lent that I wanted to fall in love again, did I realize the statement I was making?  is yes and no.  People who know me, know that I've encountered the love of God in a powerful way.  For those that don't know...Well the short version is I was lost and then I was found.  The summer of 2010 I fell in love with God for the first time. Since then it's been a journey, with good times and bad times. Which is why I wanted to make the commitment to love again.  Again I can't remember the exact Bible verse, but it says something about remembering your first love.  And that's what I want to do.  Go back to my first love, and go deeper.
One of the missionaries was giving an example of the love of God, and our love for him. She talked about God's love (and our love for him) being like a mighty river.  And first you just dip your toes in His river. Then he calls you out a little deeper, and then a little deeper. Each time we go deeper, we learn something new, something more, something deeper about Him.

I think the first and second question go to together: What is love?  In the world today hear all about love.  Love is fuzzy feelings, butterflies, sex, pleasure, the want of someone.  But what is true love?  Catholic and Christians tell us that love is sacrificing what I want for what someone else wants.  Okay, well that makes sense for people. But how does this apply to me and God?  As I sat thinking about this it hit that the answer is really scary.
Giving up what I want for what God wants. If I really mean that I want to love God in that way, that means I have to be willing to change everything for Him.  Everything that I want, everything I would like to do. The college I want to go to, the person I want to marry, everything.

This brings me to the second question: What does it mean to be in love with God?
There's another great song that I love that talks about this like climbing a mountain with hands wide open.
Isaiah 2:3 talks about climbing the Lord's mountain, to receive teaching from the Lord.  And if we think about climbing a mountain, you need your hands!  In this song we have a striking image of not using our hands to climb the mountain.  Our relationship with God is complex.  On one hand we have to climb the mountain ourselves, because of free will God will not force us.  And then on the other hand we have to let God be in control of our climbing, He must help our hands.
This is true love of God, that in serving and worshiping Him we let him guide us.  And the only way to do this is through constant prayer.

I would like to continue to talk about these questions, and the answers, throughout Lent.  As always I pray for you, as I hope you pray for me.

To Be Continued.

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