If You Really Loved Me...

 

If you really loved me, you would let me eat that whole bag of cotton candy.  It starts simply enough when we're little.  We want the whole bag of cotton candy (I speak from personal experience).  We want to do what we want when we want.  The habit grows with us.  If our parents really loved us, they wouldn't give us a curfew, or make us stay home from certain parties.  We equate love with the other person doing what we want.  

As adults, we see straight through this faulty logic.  Love means doing what's best for the other person.  We never use conditional, leveraging in our  love.  We never say things like "if you really loved me, you wouldn't be such a slob" or "if you really loved me, you wouldn't mind watching what I want to watch".

 

It's bad enough that we do this with each other, holding affection hostage until we get what we want, or employing the cold shoulder, or whatever other weight we can throw around.  

I wish I could say that we just need to retrain our interpersonal habits and read some good books on the topic and everything would be fixed.  Just throw a little Five Love Languages or Dr. Phil on the problem, and it'll clear everything up. 

But it doesn't stop there.  I wish it did.  We not only do it with each other, we do it with God Himself.  We get uppity and entitled with the Alpha and Omega, the Word made flesh, the maker of butterfly wings and thunderstorms.  We want what we want when we want it.  Why? 

Well, for one, we deserve it.  We maintain long lists of why we deserve things from God.  He owes us because we do things for Him.  We led that Boyscout troop.  We fed the homeless that one time.  We go to church every Sunday, sometimes even when we're on vacation in Iowa.  We ____________.  Insert your own list of why God owes you stuff.

Let's not gloss over the fact that this God we barter and try to leverage with is the God who sent His Son.  To die.  To be spit on.  To be tried unfairly.  To be smacked and whipped within an inch of His life.  By us.  The people He wanted to show His love to.  Do we really have the gall to ask God to prove His love?  Can we really be audacious enough to ask for our own way when we were the ones being rescued at such great cost?

For another thing, God loves us, and love means the other person serving us and giving us what we want.  Forget all that stuff the Bible has to say about love being patient and kind and keeping no record of wrongs.  We prefer the version of love where we get to eat the whole dang bag of cotton candy. 

Warning: this is about to get up close and sticky.

God's version of love is a little different than ours.  It isn't tainted or marred or riddled with hidden motives.  His love never fails.  His love seeks our good.  That last sentence can be a little misleading.  Sometimes our version of "our good" can be different from God's version of "our good". 

God, if you really loved me, my parents wouldn't have gotten a divorce.

God, if you really loved me, I wouldn't have gotten laid off.

God, if you really loved me, I wouldn't feel so alone right now.

God, if you really loved me, my kids would be following You.

God, if you really loved me, my life would be easier.

Surely it can't be for our good that we lose jobs or people we love.  Surely it can't be for our good that sometimes we have to endure pain that seems like it doesn't have a stopping point.  Surely it can't be for our good that sometimes we go through seasons of being alone or waiting or heartrending struggle. 

It depends. 

Does this sound like a kind of love worth clinging to?

~ He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.  - Psalm 147

~ The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.  The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made. - Psalm 145

~ He is my steadfast love and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield and he in whom I take refuge - Psalm 144

~ Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.  Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers - Deuteronomy 10

~ fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.  - Isaiah 41

God never promises that life will be "fine" in following Him.  In fact, He pretty much guarantees it's going to suck sometimes.  I don't think He used those words, but He does talk about it a lot - Matthew 5, John 16, not to mention all that stuff He says about "taking up crosses".  What He does promise is His Spirit, His love and His sustaining presence. 

Sometimes we think we have God figured out.  We aren't the first people to make this mistake.  Ha, read the book of Job if you want evidence of that one.  We think He operates in a certain way, something formulaic, systematic.  Hello, have you ever seen a 2 year old?  Well, God created those.  He also created quantum physics and the Grand Canyon and light particles that don't behave like particles or waves so we had to imagine some kind of weird combo theory. 

Tame is not a word that is synonymous with God.  He is a grand God with a grand, intense love that pursues people in crazy ways.  Sometimes in my small view of who He is, I wish He would give me what I want when I want it.  Then I remember I didn't design Plutonium atoms.  God did.  Maybe He has this timing thing figured out.  Maybe even though I can't understand why all the time, I can trust the One who causes or allows all things and who always keeps His promises. 

Hang in there, kiddo.  You know who loves you.

Little Miss Sunshine