I know people get mad when girls compare romance to their
relationship with Christ. Here’s
what I have to say: Paul did it.
Check out Ephesians 5:15-33.
Marriage is a supposed to be a prophetic picture of Christ and the
Church. Furthermore, I can only
speak from experience and my experience is that the Lord speaks to me through
romance.
I’m
going to be quoting someone else’s blog that I deeply respect here. Dave Sliker says, “The revelation of
the love of Christ – the experiential knowledge of it – instructs us in
how to love well and serves as an anchor that holds our hearts firm during the
storms of life.” It’s a never
ending circle of revelation.
Romance shows us how much Christ loves us and how Christ loves us is a
model for our earthly relationships (romantic or not).
God
told me during this crazy process of moving “You can’t get two steps ahead of
me.” He was speaking to my
striving and over analyzing situations.
I philosophize my way out of situations (or sometimes into them) because
I’m not waiting for the current of his presence and yielding to his peace in
the moment. If something isn’t
going well, I’m always trying to fix it (i.e. myself). If something is going well, I’m automatically
thinking how it’s going to end and how am I going to deal with the fall out. It’s always black or white.
But
God is the pursuer of his bride and his desire never changes. He will win her over even when she
gives him a thousand excuses. He
does this by two primary character traits:
God is gentle. Ok, guys, you have my permission to
close your ears. One of my
favorite TV shows, Call the Midwife recently aired an episode in which a young
bride is expecting and throughout the pregnancy is constantly trying to impress
her new husband. She does her
make-up and hair and tries to cover up her varicose veins. However, when she just gives birth she
can’t hide her tussled hair, sweaty face, vomit, and pain. The most beautiful thing in this moment
is that you see his heart for her.
He is so gentle and says that he wants to nurse her back to health. He says he doesn’t care about those
things. He asks to be the one to
take care of her.
That
is just how Jesus is. He knows
that we can’t hide the ugly parts of life from him. He still wants to care for us. He wants to be next to us, holding us. He wants us to let him in.
Jesus’
heart is like a lover and he calls us to love just as radically. I am called to be gentle. If I see a wounded brother or sister,
Christ’s heart in me should compel me to gentleness. In the past I thought calling people out on their sin was
good. But how much better is it to
speak truth over them? How much
sweeter is it that we hold them through the pain and serve them when it gets
ugly?
He is patient. He’s all about the process and he has a plan whether we
see it or not. It dawned on me that
in many romantic comedies we are privileged to see the desire of the man grow
as he watches a woman from a distance, smiling, and quietly pursuing
the girl whether she recognizes it or not. Two offhand examples are Life as we know it and Silver
Linings Playook. In each of them
the guy has a moment where he realizes he’s in love with the girl (you can
actually see it on his face when he looks at her) and now he’s going to quietly
do everything he can to woo her.
He’s patiently waiting for her to see his plan and his heart.
Similarly
I’m called to be patient. I know
doing anything out of a motive of fear is not doing it out of living in God’s
endless supply of patience. I have
found God leads me well when I am
leaning into him. I do my part and
I let him do his.
It
may not look like what I expected.
He may not come in riding on a white horse. He may be watching me from afar. He may be patiently and gently drawing me to himself. He’s the Bridegroom pursuing me and I’m
ready and waiting for him to lavish his love on me.
