Romance, the Gospel, and the state of the world

I've been talking a lot to my beautiful friend who has a passion to reach out to muslims with the gospel. We've been talking about calling, love, and romance (because mutual attraction has developed and we had to decide whether or not we should try dating). This is some of my reflection on the reality of romance, the gospel, and the state of the world.

Romance is one of the deepest realities of the universe, and possibly one that angels do not understand. God is Love. God is a lover. God is the Lover. Our human romances are just tiny glimpses into the romancing love of God.

Lovers spend gobs of time just being together. The desire to be together trumps common sense, practicallity, sleep needs, food needs, bladder-emptying needs. People in love go to crazy lengths for even a moment together.

Lovers seek to please the other. They want to make the other feel comforted and comfortable. They give gifts that bless the other. They cook the other's favorite food.

One of the problems with many groups (I'm thinking particularly of any peoples that make women subserviant and less than human), is that there is no opportunity for romance, love is distorted and one of the deepest realities about the character and nature of God is stripped away leaving something base and foul. Societies that rape, murder, torture, and subjegate their women are societies full of the stench of death and the darkness of Satan.

The Lover makes the most beautiful bride. He goes to great lengths to win her. Then he makes her more beautiful. He invites, He is mysterious, He is a great pursuer, He is tender, He is at times harsh, He has a dialogue with humanity.

Yesterday I was trying to figure out what the deepest desire of my heart is. I wondered about serving God, pleasing God, knowing God. But, it was something even deeper than those. The deepest desire is to be loved by God.

We do not need to be in human romance to know Romance. I can be so romanced by Christ that I know no one else can measure up. Human romance helps paint the picture for us. God sometimes invites us to know romance on the human plain.

Even in our culture romance has been made into something self-gratifying and selfish. There is a focus on sex and emotions when romance is something so much deeper than those things (though it does include sex and emotions).

The Bible is this amazing story of God's pursuit of humanity - picture of the great Romance. It is a wholistic picture. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. I have the affection of the Great Lover, the Great Romancer.

It is my prayer that I know His love more and more and that as I pursue earthly romance, I would come to know Christ's love and share Christ's love even more.

May you know the Great Pursuer and be romanced today!

Isaiah

Current life events have me thinking (of course I seem to think even when life isn't doing anything particularly interesting).

I was just reading Isaiah 5 which says:

The Song of the Vineyard

1 I will sing for the one I love
a song about his vineyard:
My loved one had a vineyard
on a fertile hillside.

2 He dug it up and cleared it of stones
and planted it with the choicest vines.
He built a watchtower in it
and cut out a winepress as well.
Then he looked for a crop of good grapes,
but it yielded only bad fruit.

3 "Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and men of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard.

4 What more could have been done for my vineyard
than I have done for it?
When I looked for good grapes,
why did it yield only bad?

5 Now I will tell you
what I am going to do to my vineyard:
I will take away its hedge,
and it will be destroyed;
I will break down its wall,
and it will be trampled.

6 I will make it a wasteland,
neither pruned nor cultivated,
and briers and thorns will grow there.
I will command the clouds
not to rain on it."

Then in Isaiah 14 it says:
3 On the day the LORD gives you relief from suffering and turmoil and cruel bondage, 4 you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon:
How the oppressor has come to an end!
How his fury ^[a] has ended!

5 The LORD has broken the rod of the wicked,
the scepter of the rulers,

6 which in anger struck down peoples
with unceasing blows,
and in fury subdued nations
with relentless aggression.

7 All the lands are at rest and at peace;
they break into singing.

Here's what struck me. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He does not change. He is Love. The way that Love behaves is to tear down those things that hinder us from bearing fruit, from being good and beautiful. He destroys so that he can replant - so that the vineyard will make much good wine. He does this with individuals, nations, tribes, and the history of the world. You "break" a horse when you train it. God breaks us, not to train us, but to lavish his goodness and his love upon us.

God is so good.

Recovery

I've walked through the valley of darkness
Sorrow and Suffering seemed my only friends
They led me to light
They showed me the beauty
The valley of darkness became something new:
It is the valley of healing
Sorrow and Suffering are not their real names:
Blessing and Gladness led me on my way
Now I breath like I've never done before.

How do you thank a God who does not let us stay where we are?
How do you thank a God who heals wounds you didn't know you had?
How do you thank a God who whispers your true name and draws you deeper?
How do you thank a God who continually rescues?

Thank you my God! Thank you!

Now I will sit back, no pressure, and enjoy recovering. I hope to spend the next month basking in gratitude and thanksgiving - or just sleeping a little more!