The Idol of Love

“Cause maybe you’re gonna’ be the one that saves me.” – Oasis, Wonderwall


Love. We live in a culture that loves love, or at least its idea of it. We sing songs, read books, and watch movies that exult the idea that when you find that “special someone” the rest of your life will be perfect, that they’ll save you from everything about your life that you hate and the rest of your life will be some thrilling, romantic adventure filled with passion and excitement. The problem is that it’s not true. People of the opposite sex may make good friends and spouses, but they’re terrible saviors. No matter how much someone loves you, they will fail you; and you, in turn, will fail them. It doesn’t matter if it’s a friend, a child, or a spouse they will be unable to fill the void in your soul that desires to be loved. They can’t, they weren’t created too. We were created to love, and be loved, by God Himself and anything short of that will never satisfy us.

That doesn’t mean that loving other people deeply is a bad thing. That feeling, that emotion, that desire was given to us by God. In one of the most astonishing passages in the Bible God actually says that Man being alone in his perfect, sinless form is a bad thing. (Gen. 2:18) So God created a helpmate, someone who could provide companionship, Woman. (Gen. 2:21-23)If that wasn’t mind boggling enough He says that when two people are joined together in marriage they become one entity in God’s eyes. (Gen. 2:24)

So if love, marriage, and romance are all good, enjoyable, life giving, God ordained things then why are they bad things to desire? They aren’t. There’s nothing wrong with desiring to “fall in love”, get married, and share your life with another person. The problem comes when you make the pursuit of love and romance the primary purpose of your life. Our relationships with others are intended to be the icing on the cake, not the cake its self. Anyone who’s ever eaten too much icing knows what happens. You get a stomach ache, your body doesn’t function properly, and you just feel lousy in general. Likewise, when we focus all our energy on finding happiness in relationships with others, instead of communing with God through the person and work of Jesus and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we will grow dissatisfied, angry, and frustrated.

In short, love is something to be enjoyed, not worshiped.

Looking for answers

“It’s hard to argue when you won’t stop making sense.” – Snow Patrol, Hands Open

I don’t know if this is peculiar to me or not (I suspect it isn’t) but every once in a while the pile of things in my mind labeled “Complaints and questions for God” gets so full that I can’t take it anymore and I have to go somewhere and have it out with Him, regardless of the fact that I never win these yelling matches. I don’t really care about winning anyway, I’m looking for answers and a reminder that the fact that I can’t make any sense of these things doesn’t matter, God knows exactly what He’s doing. Honestly the scariest thing that could happen would be for me to actually win a yelling match.

So I went down to The Garden of the Gods today to watch the sunrise, vent, and get some answers about why God seems to have turned me into His own personal piñata for the last month. I got all my answers before I even had a chance to say a word. I seriously could have gone home after less than a minute with every question answered.

It was still pretty dark out when I got to the park so the entire would was painted various shades of grey and black, there was a little bit of low hanging fog, and a fresh layer of snow on the ground. It was like walking through a dream, there was a part of me that kept waiting to wake up. I walked up to the base of the “Kissing Camels” formation and immediately felt stupid. I looked straight up at the towering wall of sandstone and felt my own smallness and the silliness of my questions. The only question that wasn’t silenced by simply standing there was answered by the snow. I had prayed for a thin layer of snow to simply act as an accent, and I got it. I felt a little like Gideon with the fleece. (Judges 6:36-40)

The funny thing is the snow was the only clear answer I got. I didn’t get any reasons or explanations for any of the other questions other than the fact that God is bigger, stronger, and wiser than me and everything He’s doing to and through me is for my good and His glory; and I’m okay with that.

What is a Christian?

What is real Christianity? We can toss around a lot of heady theological ideas, pithy sayings, and lame jokes but the reality is that trying to tell someone what their walk with Christ is supposed to look like telling a parent how to raise their kids. You can give some good pointers, but in the end it comes down to the personalities of the people involved.

We often describe Christianity as a “personal relationship with Jesus” but then deny people to make it personal too who they are. Instead of allowing them the freedom to express the unique skill sets and gifts that God provided them with we try to turn them into a cookie cutter version of what we think a “good Christian” looks like. (When someone finds this so called “good Christian” let me know.) While living by a set of rules may seem to make things easier it actually robs us of the true beauty of what Jesus accomplished on The Cross. When I became a Christian God didn’t swap out my jeans and t-shirt for a suit and tie. He did, however, swap out my self-centered, sinful, degenerate heart for a heart that desires to please Him, and confesses and repents of sin. How this works its self out on a daily basis varies widely from person to person. My personality and context, for example, is very different from my mother’s thus “being a Christian” looks different for the two of us. I’m a 28 year old man at an urban college campus in Denver. My mom is a middle aged woman living in east central Indiana. Because of this trying to apply what is an effective way for my mom to live out The Gospel within her context would crash and burn if I tried to act, talk, and live the same way in my environment.

There are common traits that all Christians should share although the way they get fleshed out may look very different. The most basic beliefs of Christianity include believing that we’re all born sinners, that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection are the only payment for that sin, that the Bible is the Holy, inerrant, divinely inspired word of God, that cannot be added to or subtracted from, and that we are supposed to live our lives in light of these truths.

Trying to apply a formula to something that was meant to be crafted around a unique, personal relationship will only bring despair when we fail, or pride when we succeed, but never true repentance and joy.