All my life I have heard "God loves you". Which is really pretty wonderful, and I was very grateful to escape judgment, grateful for His inexplicable grace. But I also heard "God is love" and on an emotional level, the two canceled each other out. God's love was simply a result of the fact that He is love, and so he loved me because he couldn't help it; like his love for me was a glitch in his giant brain he'd turn off if he could. Because it made no sense that anyone would choose to love me.
But last Valentine's day, God told me he didn't just love me, he was IN love with me.
There is something mysterious and contradictory and deeply appealing about someone being in love with you. It means that they have picked you out of the masses of people milling about the earth, to be the one they love, the one they commit to. They have chosen you. But simultaneously they couldn't help but choose you, because there was something in you that pulled them, a gravity they couldn't resist. They've fallen in love with you. True love is a juxtaposition of involuntarily emotion and rational decision.
It is incredibly beautiful and holy. And it is what the God of the universe has for me.
P.S. That makes God my Valentine. Beat that.
God is not "accidentally in love" with you, He is purposely, completely , consciously, deliberately, knowingly, and willfully in love with you. How's that for emphasis? :)
ReplyDeleteIf the title of this is really from Princess Bride, then you just rocked my socks.
ReplyDeleteOn a more spiritually mature note, I loved what you had to say here. Because I know the exact thing you're talking about--that transformation of understanding from "oh yeah, God loves me, isn't it nice?" to this is THE love story, and I am the princess Mia, the Elizabeth, and the hero of all heroes, the Mr. Darcy, has actually chosen me--except he is a million times better than any hero, because He fell in love with me knowing I might never choose to love Him back.
Hah, sorry to rephrase everything you already said, because you already said it so well. But anyway I thought this was very good :)