How to Earn Love

Really, what I want is to be loved.  I want to be pursued and chased and valued.  I want to get that poprocks-in-your-stomach kind of feeling.  I want to be wanted.  (Thanks, Hunter Hayes.)  I want someone to want to know what makes me tick. 

So here's the plan.

I'm just sort of working it out, so I'm open to suggestions.  I've got the grown up job, so that's good.  It might be even better that it's working with kids in a change the world/impact the next generation way.  I think that's extra points.  I'm at church almost every week.  I just got promoted to foyer hostess on the hospitality committee.  Last week at our college/career gathering, I met 12 new people.  Surely helping lead that small group is helping make my case.  I mean, what else could God want?  I put my dishes in the dishwasher.  I'm not out kicking children or committing fraud.  Maybe it's enough to be loved.

Of course, that's all rubbish. 

Never ever ever ever will you ever catch God saying "I will love you if _____________".  And yet… somehow… I get the idea that He will love me if.  If I kick the habit. If I volunteer.  If I go to church.  If I don't drink, smoke, cuss, or chew.  If I don't - you finish the sentence.  I treat love as if it's a paycheck.  If I do this for You, God, then You will owe me love.  I treat love as if it's a prenuptial agreement.  You will love me unless I _______, and then it's back to square one and I'm left with nothing.  But that's my idea of love.  I try to make love fair. 

God's love is never fair. 

(Right after the golden calf fiasco) Behold, to the LORD you God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.  Yet the LORD set His heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. Deuteronomy 10:14-15 (emphasis mine)

But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Psalm 86:15

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send His Son in to the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. John 3:16-17

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ… so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:4-7

God's love is not a paycheck.  It is not a transaction.  It would not add up, reconcile in a checkbook register, or be approved if it were a bank loan.  I cannot out run it, out smart it, or out sin it.  I got it when I didn't deserve it, so what in the big wide world makes me think I need to earn it now?  

The light dawns and the lie becomes clear.  Love is a gift, and it has always been.  Love is the richest, fullest, brightest gift, and God's is unending.

Suddenly that rush of realization about God's love spills over into how I understand human love.  So we must be careful.  The strychnine in the well poisons not only the well, but the lemonade in the pitcher and the flowers in the vase and even the cherry jello.  A crooked view of God's love - a view that love is earned or deserved or - perish the thought -  transacted - bleeds into all our other loves. 

Not "maybe if I'm funny and don't ask too much of them and send them cards on their birthdays then my friends will love me".  Quite the other way around.  Because they love me I will be funnier and ask things of them and send them cards in the mail. 

Not "maybe if I take out the trash and keep my room clean and am the biggest fan then my family will love me".  That's quite an upside down approach.  Their love makes me the biggest trash emptier/room cleaner/ fan.

Not "maybe if I look pretty and don't talk too much or just enough and have the sweetest attitude then Mr. Wonderful will love me".  Rubbish.  The love of Mr. Wonderful itself will make me pretty and will bid me talk or not and will encourage an attitude of sweetness.

That's the power of love.  It transforms things.  Love turns scars into stories of grace.  It makes peace out of conflict and action out of apathy.  It brings light to darkness and hope to despair.  

Love is a costly gift, but the greatest one.

Little Miss Sunshine