As I have previously stated, Every good person you have ever loved, has been sent rather personally to your heart from God Himself. Jesus uses these people you love so dearly to introduce himself to you many, many times. He is constantly knocking on the door of your heart through these people. I'm one of the crazy people who thinks that God uses our relationships to reveal some piece of his heart for us.
That time your parents told you there is nothing you could do to make them love you less, was actually the Father's love calling out to you. The countless times your closest friends were simply there for you through thick and thin, was actually the faithful friendship Jesus desires to share with you. Or how about that one married couple, who after many years of life together, actually love each other more than when they first began? That would be the kinda intimacy and soul oneness we were literally designed to share with our Creator. And so Eldredge explains in The Sacred Romance:
"The scriptures employ a wide scale of metaphors to capture the many facets of our relationship with God. If you consider them in a sort of ascending order there is a noticeable and breathtaking progression. Down near the bottom of the totem pole we are the clay, and he is the potter. Moving up a notch, we are the sheep and he the Shepherd. A little better, but hardly flattering. Moving upward we are the servants of the Master, which at least gets us into the house, even if we have to wipe our feet, watch our manners. Most Christians never get past this point, but the ladder of metaphors is about to make a steep ascent. God also calls us his children, and himself our Father which brings us into the possibility of real intimacy. He then calls us his FRIENDS, which opens up a communion that a 5 yr old doesn't quite know with his mother or father.
But there is still a higher and deeper level
of intimacy and partnership awaiting us at the top of this metaphorical
ascent. We are his lovers. The courtship that began with a honeymoon in
the Garden culminates at the wedding feast of Jesus. "I will take
delight in you", he says " as a groom rejoices over his bride, so I will
rejoice over you" (Zephaniah 3:17)"
After reading the excerpt from The Sacred Romance my relationship with God was absolutely turned upside down. I began seeing Gods deeply personal love for me through all my friends, family, and Samantha. It was tremendous. It is tremendous. God very plainly told me that Samantha and I's joy and delight in one another is only a tiny glimpse of his love for me. I will take delight in you, as a groom rejoices over his bride, so I will rejoice over you. Are you kidding me?! There is no question that in 99 days I will be rejoicing over Samantha. In 99 days I will take indescribable delight in Samantha. And I'm just a flabby human....How much more does the Living God, the Great Lover rejoice over us? How much more does he take delight in us?
All our deep longings and desires for one another are but small extensions of his deeper and wider longings for us to be united with him; united in an endless intimacy that infinitely overflows with joy and ecstasy.
And so I begin to wonder, if Samantha and I are giddily counting down the days until our wedding, how much more is God ecstatically counting down the days until The Wedding? Every day we wake up, Samantha and I remind each other how many more days until our wedding.
What if you believed that God does the same for you? That with each time you wake, He crosses off another day spent apart from the love of his life? You are the love of his life, don't you know? There is only one of you. God longs for you to fill the empty void in his soul that you alone can fill.
Samantha was enjoying herself at a coffee shop in Des Moines reading and relaxing this past spring. She text me excited yet incomplete saying "I wish you were here though. It's just not the same without you." Bingo. It was a message sent directly from Gods heart to my super sweet slider phone. Its just not the same in without ya son. I wish ya were here.
God wants you, longs for you, even needs your companionship. Not in way that makes him less God if you do not give yourself over to him in reckless abandon. But in a way that makes his Lover's heart ache with incompleteness upon your refusing him as the love of your own life.
Samantha and I often tell each other we 'cant wait for our day.' Its really God telling us, and you, that He can't wait for your day.
He can't wait to see you face to face, and wave goodbye to a long distance relationship littered with sin and brokenness, and usher in the new season of Life.
He can't wait.
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