I want to explain my use of the word deeper. I mean that there are some times that I “know” something in my head, but when I examine my life I don’t see any consistent evidence of that knowledge. Sometimes, it’s the difference between head knowledge and heart knowledge. Other times I may have forgotten or let something lesser replace it. Either way I’m thrilled and humbled when I understand in a more complete way than before.
What I learned I wrote letter-style to God. I don’t write this in the hopes of teaching you something about God, but to urge you to seek for yourself. No matter how far from God you are or how skeptical you are about His existence or benevolence, one thing stays the same: God, who is complete in all ways, desires a deep friendship with each of us, who struggle in incompleteness.
So question everything - check it in reliable ways, and pray for God to show you the truth in anything you read or hear.
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I asked You to teach me something new about You. And you did! I’ve been studying James, and the verse that I was wrestling with was James 4:5
It’s a highly disputed verse, but one possible translation really spoke to me. You are jealous for my faithfulness and deeply desire my love. Like a lover, you see my unfaithfulness and passionately desire my affections to be for You.
It clicked when I thought of the opening lines of “How He Loves”
He is jealous for me
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree
You are passionate for my entire heart. You desire me fiercely. My obedience and full focus is pleasing to you. You aren’t indifferent to my selfishness and the ways in which I ignore your laws.
You are protective of me and long for me to stay in the safety and freedom of your arms. This is hard for me, and maybe many others to accept and understand. From my human perspective safety is often seen as being in opposition with freedom. But You are so big that I don’t doubt this. Your love is complete. My mind struggles to grasp Your fullness, but nothing is impossible for You.
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I want to know your thoughts. What stuck out to you? Is there something you can challenge me with? Please speak freely.
This makes me think about the relationship between a husband and wife. A man never wants his wife to turn her eyes to another as her love. He desires every part of her and to be desired by her completely- nothing left out. Its the same way vice versa. True love encompasses everything.
ReplyDeleteAnd we shouldnt stop there. God says that not only are we his 'bride' and he our 'bridegroom' and 'lover' but he is also our Father and even our brother, friend, guide, etc. This says to me that God truly is our Everything. Every kind of relationship that exists (married couple, siblings, father and daughter, etc.) pretty much I think in some way reflects a part of God. So in every way that we have a good, true relationship with another, God wants to be that for us.
That's just what I thought of in reading this. :)
I like the "everything" idea...I hadn't thought of it that way. I just love that our relationships here are a shadow or type of a relationship with God.
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