We can never love Him the way He loves us. We can love Him with everything we have, and give our hearts and souls with reckless abandon, but we can never match His love. If our lives were books, the reader would hate us, because of how pitifully we return the love of the matchless Lover. I'd hate us. I'd probably throw the book against the wall, declare the protagonist to be an idiot who didn't deserve the One who died for her. She's shortsighted, self-centered, dimwitted, and she breaks His heart every day. I'd hate this character!
Thank God I'm not God. Thank God that He has not thrown His hands up, left us in our muck, and created a new, worthier species to love. That's what makes His love so matchless: it never stops.
Oh sure, God's had His times of righteous rage. Wouldn't you? The entire book of Hosea and most of Isaiah is a furious, grief-stricken lament from God who has had His heart broken too many times. It sounds like an explosive, bitter break-up, but its not. It's a time of anger, then a short separation, but then He comes back. He always comes back because His love cannot end. The remarkable thing is that we, the betraying party, often don't grasp the weight of what we've done to Him. I think we will someday, but we don't get it now.
So, what do we do? What do you do when you are loved like this, but know you can never match it?
You try anyway.
We have to try to not be the character who blatantly ignores the One who is mad for her. We have to try to return the love, even knowing it will never be enough on its own. To love God fully takes everything we have, and that still only scratches the surface. I believe what He wants more than anything is the surrender of our hearts, and the recognition that He is the only true love we will ever have. Like the man throwing stones at a shut window, He wants us to open the shutters and see Him longing for us.
"How precious and weighty also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast the sum of them! If I could count them, they would be more in number than the sand. When I awoke, could I count to the end I would still be with You." Psalm 139: 17-18
Once we acknowledge Him, we listen. Listen to His heart through the reading of His Word. Sit quietly (its hard to do) in His presence, and let Him speak to your heart. Then obey. It's that simple, and it makes that much sense. Christianity is not hard. Humanity is hard, and its the only thing stopping us from being truly great Christians. The only thing stopping us from loving Christ fully, He has given the tools to overcome.
"He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8
Maybe He isn't the foolish lover after all. Maybe we are.
LOVE
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