Oceans. There are oceans contained in the first commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all you soul, with all your mind.” Along my Christian journey to be more like Jesus, I’m amazed at how long it has taken for me to be able to say with simple confidence: “I love God.”
When I was young, loving God was no more that loving myself: liking the blessings and benefits of God. I loved the idea of a God who did stuff for me, who inflated my sense of security and value. Then loving God became mysterious, esoteric. In reality I think it was because love itself was a mystery. I could read Paul’s definition of love in 1 Corinthians and agree that a love that kept no record of wrong, rejoiced with the truth, and bore all things was a nice ideal. But I had no clue where the resources to practice that kind of love came from except a general inkling that they came from God Himself.
10 years ago I got hungry to understand love. Around that time, we had our first child and I was pulling out of a significant crisis of faith in which I wasn’t sure I believed in God anymore (much less loved Him). But after that season, I started hearing people speak about a “revelation of the Father’s love”. That was a mystery to me, but just hearing others talk about how God had changed their lives through this mysterious outpouring of His love drew me in.
Then one day, a quiet internal voice said “my child, I love you.” I knew from the bible God loved me. I imagined this love to be a general, grandfatherly love that felt mildly magnanimous toward all its creatures. But I had never heard God inside me saying “I love you” just to me. I remember the warm buzz of affection that came with that voice and I remember smiling and saying, “Thanks Jesus! I know you do!”
The response in my heart was sharp and immediate: “No you don’t. But that’s okay. I love you.” That affirmation of his love and acceptance and the warm feeling of His love crashing over me like an ocean last 6 weeks and then stopped. Or maybe I stopped listening. Either way, it was painful.
Then 3 years ago, I was coming out of another dry and difficult season. One day I was driving in my car listening to the radio and I heard that same voice say something else: “My child I love you. And I really enjoy spending time with you.” It’s one thing to know God loves you powerfully and individually. It’s another thing to know that he gets something out of the time you spend together: that he can not only give love but receive love as well. It motivated me to spend more time with him.
The more I did, the more I felt His love. Soon I could feel His love with the slightest shift of my attention in his direction. The more I felt His love, the more I was able and willing to orient my life towards it. Things that were tedious and difficult became light and easy to me. I could give things up easily when God asked for them.
One day I had a tense conversation with my wife. I could feel the impulse to argue, explain, and justify. But as I was about to lob another volley of self-protective and self-promoting words over the wall, a voice settled like dew on my brain: “ya know, you don’t have to get your way. And you don’t have to be understood.” I felt the tension flow out of my body and a joyful lightness flood in. From then on, whenever that tension came back, I could easily remember that I was now free from the obligation to protect and preserve myself by getting my way in anything.
Whole universes unlocked for me in that simple word. I could be work a menial job and be perfectly happy. I could lose my house, even my health and rest content. I could be dragged to prison by a corrupt Zambian policeman looking for a bribe and feel nothing but joyful acceptance in the detour of my plans. I felt like a super power that was given to me by one simple and inviting word: “you don’t have to get your way.”
Not long after, I heard the voice say (as it had now been saying daily for over a year) “child, I love you. And now you know it.” I was at the bird sanctuary that morning. I’ll tell you, I sang and shouted and danced in the woods! I felt God’s assurance that I had finally allowed Him to love me. My mind was no longer conflicted. I longer felt vague and mysterious about what love was, what it felt like. I was feeling it. I knew it by smell, taste, and touch. And for the first time, I just let it in without caveats or reservations.
Today, I told God, “I love you.” And I could hear the smile in the words that came back. “I know you do, child.” Though I can say with truth and confidence that I love God, I can still feel the bounded nature and weakness of that love: the fact that my attention span for God is little more than an hour, the fact that I still feel the pressure to get on to the “real work” of the day, the fact that there are still some things that scare me.
So I think I’m entering a season of pruning: inviting him to trim these fruitful branches to make them even more fruitful. I want to press deeper into his love: to let Him love me more deeply, to let him burn out the remaining self-love that once drew me to Him, but now hinders my growth. And this journey, like the others, won’t be a journey of exertion or insight but one of believing and trusting: just learning to rest in the good news. He loves me. And I get to love him too.
