Crazy Love, Chapter 6: When You're In Love

Where's chapter 5, you may be asking yourself? Well, I'm not sure I'm ready to write that one yet.

But still, we press on.

This chapter really hits home for me, mostly because I think this issue of loving God has been a struggle at the center of my entire Christian life. You can say "I love Jesus" all that you want, but if the motivation isn't there, it simply isn't there.

I really struggle with loving God wholeheartedly and for the right reasons. I think I've shared on here before that I don't think I've ever really experienced what it means to be "in love" with another person, and that kind of frustrates me because I don't really have much of a barometer to go off of in my relationship with God. People tell me that "when you're in love, you'll know." Well, I'm not sure that I know, so I guess that means I haven't really experienced that... and biggest of all, that means I haven't experienced love with God.

I am definitely committed to being and living as a Christian, I think. (haha note the irony there? Well done, Wesley. Well done.) I mean, I've been baptized. I don't miss church; heck, I've committed my life to serving in ministry. I go to a Bible college, and I major in Biblical Studies. I give 10% of my paycheck each week in the offering plate. I try to let the teachings of the Bible shape the way I live my life and interact with others. I don't say this to brag, but just to state some facts.

Yet, is it possible that despite all of this that I am just missing the point?

I really wish to be engulfed in a relationship with God the resembles the one Francis Chan describes with his wife's grandmother. I really wish that that was me, were I just love spending time in prayer, reading Scripture, simply sitting back and worshipping, all that stuff.

But I think that if I'm really honest, I look at a lot of Christian spirituality as simply one big chore. I want all of the grace and forgiveness without much of the effort. I make a pretty good effort at the facade of a Christian life, but there's very little heart behind it. If all my faith does is fill a Sunday morning time slot, stop me from having sex before marriage and keep me from cussing and getting drunk all the time, then that's a pretty sorry belief system. I want a faith that transforms and changes me completely, and I'm not sure that I'm seeing that.

I'm kind of coming face-to-face with the idea that transformation doesn't just happen. Transformation won't happen in my life without my fair share of effort. For instance, I am hideously overweight, and for a long time I think I just kind of thought that would magically change without me actually changing for some reason. Yet, now I realize that change doesn't happen unless I make a change. Thus, this summer began my big running experiment.

The same goes with the Christian faith. I won't see my life transformed and changed unless I'm willing to take the initiative to make some change and transformation myself. That requires hard work like praying when I'm tired, making time to read God's Word each day, and worshipping even (especially!) when I don't feel like it.

But the great news is that God is more than willing to meet us halfway. I'm right on with Francis Chan in believing that we need God's help to love Him that much. I'm a sinful human, and I am incapable of loving anyone beautifully, truly, and completely. God will help me along in that process if I simply (persistently) ask Him. I think we just need to understand that it's not some magic process where I wave the wand of prayer and I'm magically transformed from Wesley Blackburn into Mother Teresa. There is real work involved.

So what have we put in the way of loving God? I've put a lot of stuff in the way.

• Spending hours of my day daydreaming about being in love with whatever girl I'm crushing on (probably only happens like 3000x a day).
• Spending my money on acquiring the newest clothes, gadgets, music, whatever.
• Placing a higher priority on spending time with friends over spending time with God.

None of these are bad things in and of themselves, but they become terrible when they are prioritized ahead of God. Remember the God we learned about in chapter 1? That God is way cooler, way bigger, way more important, and way more worthy of our worship than any other thing on that list above (or any of our lists, really).

Lord, help me to love You. Help me to be lost in a genuine love and affection for You. Help me to love spending every minute with You, and may I enjoy as close a relationship with You as humanly possible. May I not just read about examples of that relationship; God I want to experience that relationship. As scary as it is, Lord, I offer my entire life to You. I am surrendered to You. Lord, may I know You better and fall more in love with You each day.

Amen.

Crazy Love, Chapter 3: Crazy Love

I struggle to say the words "I love you."

I'm a pretty analytical person. And I am also of the persuasion that love is something beautiful and important. So, I probably also struggle to say "I love you" because other people toss the word "love" around so much. I know some people that love everything from their television to their grandma to their toaster oven.

I'm not so sure that's what love is meant to be.

I've never been in love, and I kind of wonder what that feels like. One day, I hope to fall just head over heels in love with a girl and have my heart beat fast and my stomach get butterflies each time she looks at me or talks to me or whatever. So juvenile, I know. But I hope to one day experience that. And I think that the fact that I don't feel like I know what love is or looks like or feels like kind of makes it hard for me to love.

I love my mom and my dad and most of the time, my sister (just kidding, I love her all the time). I love my friends. But I struggle to love God.

In addition to my struggle to say "I love you," I think a big reason why I struggle so much at loving God is simply the nature of the relationship. I just really struggle with loving this immense and huge God that I cannot see, touch, feel, etc. That's kind of weird to me.

I don't know that I carry a ton of baggage into looking at God like a Father. My dad is great, and I love him. However, through the first 12-14 years of my life, dad worked long, hard hours at his job. I feel like I never got to see him that much, and we've since just kind of had this relationship that's not very relational. Just kind of short, sweet, and to the point. We have our great moments, to be sure, but overall it's just kind of a not very relational relationship. Maybe I carry some of that over into my relationship with God, too.

I struggle at loving God. For the longest time, I did all the right Christian stuff, but I'm not sure it really did me much good because I did it because I would feel guilty otherwise. Especially in junior high and my first few years of high school, I did stuff like praying and reading my Bible not because I wanted to or because I loved God and wanted to get closer to Him, but because I would feel guilty and like a bad Christian if I didn't. Eventually, I got so frustrated because I wasn't getting anything out of this stuff that I basically gave up the day-to-day following God stuff. I didn't walk away from the faith or anything, and I certainly still made an effort to worship and follow God, but around my senior year in high school, I just kind of gave up on the whole daily Bible reading and prayer stuff because it was frustrating me and I just hated doing it. It was boring. I really empathized with that loveless faith that Francis described at the beginning of this chaper.

Probably because I was doing all that stuff for all the wrong reasons.

Since the start of 2009, God has really been working and getting a hold of me in this area. Slowly but surely I'm starting to do the day-to-day following God stuff like praying and reading my Bible because I understand that these are not exercises for me to check off of my Christian To-Do List, but that these are real ways in which God and I form a relationship. That's been difficult for me to embrace, but I'm slowly coming around, and that really excites me.

I sincerely agree with Francis Chan... if we ever truly learn and understand the basic idea that God loves us and cares for us and even wants a relationship with us, it will rock us to the core. I think that for me, familiarity has breeded contempt in this area. The message of God's love has become too familiar to me, and I gloss over it like I would any other mundane, ordinary thing. Yet, the fact that God loves me isn't ordinary at all. It's huge! It should shake my whole understanding of faith, following Jesus, and living my life.

After finishing the chapter, I was really overcome with this sense to simply meditate on the question: "What does it mean to say that God loves me?" I turned to 1 Corinthians 13 for my answer, replacing the word "love" with God. It was kind of a powerful exercise to pray about. Through it, I was reminded of God's incredible patience and perseverance with me. I was reminded that God always has my best interests at heart, and is incredibly kind and merciful to me. But most of all, I was reminded that God never fails, and would never leave me.

I love God. That's a fact. I love Him for what He's done for me, but I also love Him because of who He is, and because of the mere fact that even when no one else does, He chooses to care for me, to listen to me, and to love me, even when He gets absolutely nothing out of this relationship (which, let's be honest, is probably 99.99999% of the time).

"The greatest knowledge we can ever have is knowing that God treasures us" (p.61). I pray and pray and pray that God would continue to open my eyes to this mind-blowing truth.

Desire.

Well, taking some time to write tonight from the Garlands' house... yet another family that has done so much for me and has longingly bestowed their hospitality on me. I have learned a lot about that in the past year or so... it started in Brazil and now continues in Springboro and will continue when I move to Chicago in a few months. Lord, thanks for the awesome, gracious, loving, and compassionate people that you put into my life.

Tonight, as I was driving here, for some reason I started to do a little bit of thinking about Psalm 42, and the psalmist's declaration that "as the deer pants for the water, so my soul longs after You, oh God." It got me thinking about a few things.

Number one, I wish I could honestly say that about my life right now. Over the past few weeks, I've started to try to get into the habit of running a half mile or so before I get my day going, just in an effort to try and get a little bit more into shape. I am in terrible shape, and so when I finish each day, I am parched. I'm breathing hard. I'm sweating. Nothing feels better than a nice, tall, cool glass of water. And that's kind of the imagery I get here.

I wish that I could say I desired God that much. But I honestly don't know that I can say that right now. I used to feel that desire was something that just happened. You either had it or you didn't. As I've continued to grow up, though, I realize that the more you come into contact with beautiful things, the more you desire them. So I guess I need to work harder at exposing myself to the beauty of God, whether that's through a heartfelt prayer, the beauty of Scripture, or the wonder of worship.

Secondly, I started to think about the whole idea of desiring God. What does it mean to "desire God?" I think that's one of those church phrases that I just throw out there all the time without truly thinking about what it means. So tonight, I dared to define that. I came up with few different things. I think that desiring God means that I make a continual effort to spend time with him, whether that's Scripture, prayer, worship, or even just thinking about God and the way of life that he calls me to. I think that it's really important to make the recognition that when we truly desire things that we set aside other stuff for that thing. For instance, do I really desire my girlfriend, wife, or best friend if I'm not willing to turn off the TV and go see them or talk to them?

But I think that just as importantly, desiring God means that I genuinely desire for God's kingdom to come on this earth. And that has some huge implications as well, mostly because bringing God's kingdom to earth starts with me.

It starts with me taking the initiative to love other people, even the hard to love ones.

It starts with me making service a daily part of the life I live.

It starts with me having the courage to cultivate relationships with others.

It starts with me taking time out of my day to deal with others' problems, even when I have other stuff that needs to be done.

It starts with me diligently working to be a more Christlike person.

Beyond that, truly desiring God's kingdom to come requires me having the courage to encourage and lead other people to do these very same things. Not only must I lead by example, but I have to actively encourage other people to join in. That can take several forms: sharing the gospel message with someone who doesn't follow Jesus, finding a way to involve other people in the things that I am working to do for Christ, and sometimes even giving a swift (but loving!) kick in the pants to Christians who keep sitting on the sidelines.

For me, all of this is kind of a big thing to think about. Desiring God isn't just a state of mind, but it is something that can and should be directly seen through who I am and what I do. That can be difficult work, but that is the work that God calls us to! I'm sorry for the times and ways in which I don't demonstrate this. I'm still a work in progress. Can we try again? Together?