Mystic Warrior

My two-and-a-half year old daughter is in the continual process of picking up things that she has gleaned from her older four-and-a-half year sister.  Recently she has been saying, “When I grows up I’m going to marry my daddy.”  To be honest, I really liked hearing her say that.

One day her older brother was trying to explain to her that she wouldn’t be able to marry her daddy.  She got very upset and declared, “I love my daddy – I will always love my daddy – and he will marry me because I’m his ‘Princess!’ Besides he will love me ‘No Matter’ what!”

Unconditional Love
I thought to myself – where did that come from.  The concept of unconditional love is a lofty idea.  Have you ever thought where it comes from?  A love that will always be returned to us!  If we are loved we will reciprocate. Who believes in such a thing?

Great Lovers
Recently I heard someone say, “If love is such a profound emotion, why is it that we love everything and anything?”  It seems that we are a culture of great lovers.  We love movies, shopping, ice cream, our pets, great meals, weekends, clear days in the Inland Empire, and rock and roll!

It is not just Americans.  What do people “love?”  Think wine, BMW’s, watches, lattes, sushi and you know the French, the Germans, the Swiss, the Italians and the Japanese.
At times it seems that we love even the most meaningless of things.  Could this fact point to our capacity to love more than we think?  So often we describe love in such superficial terms.  But how do we adequately describe deep, profound, unending love?

Profound Love
I believe it starts with the realization that we exist in a unique category.  That is, we are the object of God’s love! God first loved us and sent his Son that we might fully know his love.  A corollary to this truth is that the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom.  How amazing!  Who wouldn’t respond to these facts?

Years ago, Solomon described the desperation that comes when we seem unable to capture the heart of the one we love.  The Scriptures teach us that God feels like this.  The Hebrews describe God and his love as immeasurable and unending.  If this is true than his sense of sorrow and rejection must be more deep and profound than we can imagine. God knows the pain of a love unreturned.

Ever wonder what you must do to be loved?  The answer is nothing.  The depth of God’s love is demonstrated in the fact that He loves you unconditionally and allows you to reciprocate freely.

Reciprocation Implications
Each month it is joy to interact with readers of Serve! and dialog about the implementation of the outward-focused-life.  Here are few ‘take-aways’ to ponder:

• Those you serve this week long to be loved and love to love, even if their loving may seem shallow.
• Even our superficial attempts of love point to our capacity for greater, God-depth love.
• The theological underpinnings of God’s love informs our love – that is God loves even if it is “unreturned.”  Hence we should as well.

Demonstrating God’s love in practical ways will point people to God’s deeper love!

John Edgar Caterson is co-founding Pastor of CoastlandTampa, a church-planter, writer, and co-collaborator with Steve Sjogren for the last decade. He  is currently living in Lithia, FL with his bride Kristi and three children.  You can also find him at www.bnmi.org