On the day after my 21st birthday, I sat in church and just prayed to God asking him to teach me what love truly is – to make this 22nd year of my life a year of love – true, biblical love. I thought I knew what love was, and I thought I was great at demonstrating it. I could be sweet and flirty and romantic and silly and cute. But, when disagreements came, I resorted to my natural instinct of reaching into the pit of hell and, with my words, hurling its flames at others, causing destruction to not only those on the other end, but those relationships as well. Thankfully, God has been faithful, mostly in ways I would have never asked for, to teach me about His kind of love and give me opportunities to walk in it. The main thing I am learning so far is that love is not romance… not at all. Love is not cute and sweet and flirty; love is sacrifice. First Corinthians 13 says that love is patient (sacrificing your time), love is kind (sacrificing your natural desire to be mean), it does not envy (sacrificing your wants), it does not boast (sacrificing your reputation), it is not proud (sacrificing your pride), it does not dishonor others (sacrificing your position), it is not self-seeking (sacrificing your personal interests), it is not easily angered (sacrificing your temper), it keeps no record of wrongs (sacrificing your hurt), and it does not delight in evil (sacrificing your sinful nature).
And above all of these things, love bears all things, endures all things, and hopes all things because love never fails.
I realized that God loved us with absolutely everything in him. Do you know that kind of love? Have you ever been in love like that? But, then something happened that caused him to not be able to be with him. Not by choice. Not by anything God did. But because of a mistake that humans made. Sin. Have you ever been in any kind of relationship (friendship, dating, marriage) where the other person did something that caused you to no longer be able to be with them…but you so badly wished you still could? Has your heart ever ached for someone you cannot be with? Maybe it is because of death or maybe it is because of a sinful action, but the feeling, that deep, overwhelming ache to be reunited is so real and present. I realized that’s how God felt. Our sin MADE us unable to be together with God. His good and perfect nature could not allow it. But God still ached for mankind – for me – for you. So, he loved. 1 Peter 4:8 says, “…love covers a multitude of sins.” That verse was made evident through Christ Jesus who loved us and ached to be with us so much so that he sacrificed his position in Heaven, his own interests, his righteous anger, any record of our wrong, and his own life to love us and cover our massive multitude of sins so that we could be reunited with the Father. I’m overwhelmed when I think of it like that. God, the God of the universe, ached for me, Amelia. And he ached for you, too. If you have yet to give your life fully over to him, he is still aching for you. He has already done what is necessary for you to be united with Him, so I pray that you would sacrifice your pride or control or fear, or whatever else it is, and give your life to the One whose love is perfectly faithful, relentless, hopeful, unconditional, and eternal. Because that love is powerful, and that is a God worthy of everything we have and everything we are.
amelia catherine 