On Receiving Love

"Love is the expression of the one who loves, not of the one who is loved.  Those who think they can love only the people they prefer do not love at all.  Love discovers truths about individuals that others cannot see."

-Soren Kierkegaard 

A coworker shared this quote with me several months ago, and I've had it posted on my desk for so long that I have ceased to notice it's there.  Thankfully it stuck in my brain enough to be recalled the past few days as I've been thinking about love and newly-wedded bliss.

Last night Ryan and I celebrated our first month of marriage, and even though it's been only one month I have realized quite a bit about myself...particularly how difficult it is for me to simply receive love.  Ryan is a very patient man and very good at reminding me that he loves me for who I am, not for the things I do.  His love for me is reassuring because I know him to be a consistent, faithful, man.  The more I know him, the more I can trust his love.  

If Kierkegaard is right about love (and he generally knew what he was talking about), love is an expression more than it is a reflection.  Ryan's love for me is an expression of who he is, not a reflection of who I am.  The more I learn about who Ryan is, the way he lives day-to-day life, the little quirks that make him who he is, the more I learn about how he loves me.  Additionally, the more I get to know Ryan, the more he is able to teach me how to love him.  (There is always a small part of me that worries that I'm not doing enough to let him know how much I love him, how interested in him I am, or how much I want to learn more about him.  I want to know him better because I want to love him better because I already love him so much!)

Because marriage is a metaphor for how Christ loves the Church, and because I tend to learn best in metaphors, I extrapolate much in regards to my relationship with Christ from my marriage.  It's always been difficult for me to receive the unconditional, priceless grace and love of God.  For a long time I lived under self-imposed pressure to prove to God how much I loved Him and how much I valued His grace and mercy.  To be honest, I didn't really understand His heart and what He desires of us, so I was unable to receive His love or truly love Him back.  But God's love for me is an expression of who he is, not a reflection of who I am.  God loves me perfectly, purely, constantly because He is Perfect, Pure, and Constant.  If I want to get to know God more (which I do!) I need to begin by letting go of my preconceived notions of who He is and learn about who He actually is through His love.

1 John  4:7-12 gives us a glimpse into this mystery:

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.  Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.  This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

"No one has ever seen God: but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."  We learn more about who God is by expressing His love to others in our lives.  And, in so doing, that Love changes us and is "made complete in us."

I wish I understood this better.  The more I wrestle with this concept of love, the more I realize that I don't get it.  In order to understand God more, I need to receive His love more fully...but in order to receive His love more fully, I need to first express that love to others?  Or is it that in seeking to love others that I learn more about who God is because I understand the nature of His love better as I realize that He is much better at loving the unlovable than I am?  Is it in realizing my own shortcomings of love that I realize the vast perfection of His love?  All of the above?

Am I really surprised that I'm realizing how little I know about love after a month of being married?  Nope.  Just scratching the surface.  But I am excited to continue to learn about the connection between giving and receiving love and how it informs the "discovery of truths about individuals that others cannot see."  And I am thankful that I have a very patient husband and an infinitely more patient Savior to take this journey with me.

Covenant

At our Monday morning staff meeting this week we focused on the concept of covenant, and explored biblical examples as well as how the true meaning of covenant has been lost in our society today.  Covenant still carries with it connotations of a promise, maybe even a serious promise, but the deeper heart of a binding commitment is difficult to grasp.  As I understand it, a covenant is made between two parties under the authority and accountability of a third outside party.  (E.g., we often refer to marriage as a covenant between two people before God.)  Both parties are bound to one another, and serious consequences are in store for whomever dares break covenant.  In the Old Testament, covenant required a sacrifice because blood was a key part of covenant.  Every covenant mentioned in the Old Testament involves a sacrifice of blood (Gen 8, 15, and 17, just to name a few).  Blood is required to indicate how seriously both parties take the covenant; in essence, each is saying "Let this be done to me if I break covenant with you."  

While there are grave consequences for breaking covenant, the trust that is displayed by both parties allows opportunity for incredible intimacy.  Referring again to the example of marriage, when both people are truly and wholly committed to one another and to the success of the marriage, there is the freedom to give yourself fully to the other without the fear that they're going to run the opposite direction when your sinful nature surfaces.  In covenant, there is a beautiful opportunity for growth and refining.  Covenant is scary because it's a serious commitment!  It requires intense vulnerability, and it continues to demand vulnerability of each party.  It's not as if there's a plateau of vulnerability, and then you get to coast.  Covenant fosters an ongoing bond between both parties, and there is the opportunity for healthy mutual dependency that promises to be there today, tomorrow, and each day after that.  

In Jesus, we live in the New Covenant.  Christ has fulfilled the Law and has fully taken on the consequences of our sinful nature and our inability to keep covenant with God.  When God made covenant with Abram and chose the Israelites as His people, He did so with the full knowledge that they wouldn't be able to keep the Law and would break covenant again and again.  Rather than destroying mankind every time we failed (because He promised never to do that again in Genesis 8, and He is faithful even though we are not!), God accepted animal sacrifices to fulfill the covenantal demand for the shedding of blood.  When Jesus came, He came in the dual role of Sacrifice and Redeemer.  He came not only to fully and completely pay the blood sacrifice demanded by the covenant, but also to initiate a New Covenant to bring all of Creation back to relationship with God.

Now, our view of covenant directly informs how seriously we understand what it means to submit our lives to Jesus.  Do we truly understand what it means to be in covenant with the God of the Universe?  When we tell kids in Sunday school about 'asking Jesus into their heart,' do we really understand what kind of commitment we're asking of kids who still think there are monsters under the bed?  In giving our lives over to Jesus as King and Savior, we are entering into the New Covenant with Him.  We submit to His authority and reign, and we actively choose to live as He commands us to.  We refuse all other ways of living, and we obey what He asks of us.  We are binding ourselves to Him, and giving our lives over for Jesus to bind Himself to us.  That is incredible!  Don't miss the beauty of the second part:  God is committed to us.  The more we understand the gravity of covenant and seek Jesus, the more we experience the love and freedom offered to us through trusting that God will not abandon us.  We are faithless and sinful, but God is not.  He holds up His end of the covenant and offers us unending grace when we fail.  When we understand the kind of Love that is on the table, we can't help but be intrigued and want to know it more!