There is something deep inside of my heart, as a human being and especially as a woman, that comes alive when I know that someone is in wild pursuit of me.
Since being engaged, the one thing that has brought me the most joy is when I listen to Jonathan tell "our story". Now don't get me wrong, I love telling people about the day we met and the story of Jonathan's proposal, but it is so much more amazing to hear him tell it. Why? Because he gets so excited! His entire countenance lights up and he expects everyone within earshot to be just as giddy to listen as he is to share. He is excited to marry ME. He loves ME. He loves to talk about ME. And oh, does it fill my stomach with butterflies!
Now imagine how God must glow when we talk about Him! It must fill Him with such joy! He is worthy of praise and admiration and...get this....He longs to be pursued. He longs to be chased after and talked about and loved. Why is it that we take away His person-hood and make Him into this unfeeling Being in the sky? Why is it that we want Him to do anything and everything we ask of Him, but we don't think twice about what He asks of us and why?
We are created in the image of God. This means that the girl who spends hours upon hours getting ready to see her Prince Charming is a bearer of that image. It means that certain qualities of God are reflected in a man who puffs up as he hears his woman brag him up to her girlfriends. The science books may boast that these phenomenons are based solely on hormone levels, but I beg to differ! These are fingerprints of the Almighty God. They are markings of the Creator. They are evidence of a Divine desire for relationship.
This God desires a relationship with each and every person. He won't force us into that relationship though. I wouldn't want Jonathan to love me or talk about me because he HAS to! That would be miserable! What makes our relationship exciting is that we are both making the conscious, willing decision to love each other no matter what. Neither of us were bribed or threatened into loving each other...we wanted to.
That's how it should be with our relationship with God. We should love and trust and worship Him because we want to. And from the moment we accept His forgiveness and place our trust in Him as our personal Saviour, we should never stop wanting intimacy with Him. We should never stop talking about Him. His praise should be continually in our mouths and we should do everything can to bring glory and honor to Him.
So what am I going to strive for in my relationship with God? I want to give Him butterflies in His stomach. I want to brag him up to my friends until He puffs up with pride. That is what He deserves from His children.
I will praise the Lord at all times; His praise will always be on my lips... Psalm 34:1
2 comments:
I love you very much, babe. I had no idea you were working on this blog. My heart is overwhelmed with utter unworthiness to be loved by you or to have you use our relationship, with all our personal failures and mess-ups as a couple, to reflect God's endless desire to be pursued.
No one,especially me, deserves to be loved by a holy God. But God demonstrates His love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ Jesus died for us (Romans 5:8)Grace is unmerited, unearned, undeserved favor and love. God has shown grace to a world who endlessly despises Him and His ways and pursues everyone and everything else but Him.
This is love, not that we first loved Him, but that He first loved us and sent His only Son to be the sacrifice for our sins.
For all future readers, God's desire is for you to desire Him--to be love Him and be loved by Him. Your sin (your lies, sexual immorality, impurity, drunkeness, gossip, hatred, idolatrous pursuit of any thing else but God Himself) blinds you to see God and desire Him. He sent Jesus, who was the Light of the world, to die for your sins, who now invites you to acknowledge your sins, confess them to Him, and by faith ask Christ to forgive you, and He will.
He will shower you with undeserved love and mercy, and will wildly pursue you all your days.
Will you respond to that call? What stops you from trusting Him? Do you love your sin more than God? Most likely yes. Do you not care? More than likely yes. Then tell God exactly that; He is big enough to handle it. But I challenge you to admit everything you feel to Him, regardless of wheter you believe, and ask that if He is real, that He would reveal Himself to you--and guess what? He will.
"You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart" (Jeremiah 29:9-13).
Will you pursue?
I love you! ;-)
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