I think we long for romance because God is romantic. I also believe there is to be romance and mystery in our journey of faith. Paul said, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church" (Ephesians 5:31-32). It obvious from this text that committed, romantic relationships give us a glimpse into the kind of relationship God wants with each one of us.
It turns out that many of the characteristics in a romantic relationship mirror the relationship a believer has with God. Let’s look at three.
EXCLUSIVITY
Romantic love is privileged love. In this kind of love there is a desire for the couple to be emotionally and physically separate from other people. In friendship love, if a person wanted you to be their only friend and no one else’s—that would be a signal of some kind of weirdness. We should have many friends. But this is not so with romance. Romantic love is exclusive love. Only two should be in on this—that defines normal.
The first commandment in the Decalogue carries the idea of exclusivity: “You shall have no other gods” (Exo. 20:3). God wants to be ours and wants us to be his—exclusively. It is because he is God Almighty that he can pull off being “only” with me and “only” with you at the same time. No dissolution. No infidelity on his part. But we cannot. We must carefully watch what we allow our attention and love to be attached to. James warns, “You're cheating on God. If all you want is your own way, flirting with the world every chance you get, you end up enemies of God and his way. And do you suppose God doesn't care? The proverb has it that ‘he's a fiercely jealous lover’” (James 4:4-5 MSG). God gets jealous of our love for other things. He wants exclusivity. Cultivating a love for God instead of for things gives concreteness to the notion that we belong to God alone.
FLIRTING
Romance has flirting in it. To flirt is to chase another. Happy couples do this all the time. Gail and I have been married for over thirty years and we still flirt. On and off throughout the day you can catch us flirting—we still run after each other. You can hear it in the tone of our voices as we talk with each other; it’s in the love names we call each other; it’s in the passing touch; it’s present in the lingering stare from across the room, it’s in those teasing whispers—flirting adds to the joy and playfulness to the romantic relationship.
Flirting is all about the “chase.”
Does God flirt with us? I think so. In the 1800”s, Francis Thompson referred to God as “the Holy Hound of Heaven.” The imagery familiar in Thompson’s day of a bloodhound on a dashing hunt to track a scent, powerfully reflects how God tracks us down the corridors of our lives to capture us with his relentless love. The Psalmist penned, “Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit”” He goes on to say, “If I climb to the sky, you're there! If I go underground, you're there! If I flew on morning's wings to the far western horizon, you'd find me in a minute—you're already there waiting!” (Psa. 139:7-11 MSG).
God chases us. And he shows no pause or caution in it.
And I think we are to flirt back. Prayer is one of the ways we can “chase” God back. The Psalmist said, “Seven times a day I praise you” (Psa. 119:164). He was chasing. Chasing after God is sweet. Even a peppering of simple one-sentence prayers throughout your day like, “I love you, Jesus” or “I think you are amazing and so generous” or “Praise to you, God—I belong to you” or singing a simple praise chorus, are all good examples of spiritual flirting. You are simply chasing after him. You are flirting. And flirting adds joy and playfulness to spirituality.
TOGETHERNESS
Romance demands togetherness. Sharing everyday life together is the only way a couple will ever experience a true “union” of heart and mind. Life’s experiences always shape and challenge who we are as persons, as well as who we are becoming. If you don’t have continuous interaction with the one you love in “real time,” you won’t be able to integrate and harmonize your experiences together—you’ll end up being like ships passing through the night. You’ll grow apart instead of growing together.
Human togetherness rumors the way God wants to make himself accessible to us. He wants to be with us—right in the mix of the contours of everyday life. He loves to engage us within the potentials and flaws of the human experience and within the possibilities and limitations of our fallen world. Paul exclaimed, “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). God wants a day-in/day-out relationship with his people.
Jesus came to earth to open a way for a union of God’s life with ours. Grace makes that possible. Grace is God’s presence with us in time. Grace brings a new way of living to bear—a new quality of life. This “life” is not simply “added” onto what we experience as ordinary life. Grace is not like a super-unleaded gasoline pumped into our human tanks so we can function more efficiently. Nor is grace a new layer of existence that covers up the old. Grace is the free and gratuitous communication of God’s life into our human experience—God wants to hang with us. It creates new birth and new creation in the context of real time. And it results in giving us full utilization and meaning for human life. This is God and humankind uniting—us living “together” in what becomes sacred space. This is a divine/human interaction—a relationship of cooperation.
I married my wife Gail to stay in her presence. The same goes with my relationship with God. I have faith in order to stay in God’s presence. The Psalmist wrote, “As for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge” (Psa. 73:28). When God told Moses to lead the Israelites into the wilderness, Moses answered, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here” (Ex. 33:15). We should say the same.
This Valentine’s Day, don’t forget to ask God to be your valentine too. He’s already madly in love with you and I bet it will make him smile. |
