Unreasonable Love

     I was reading a book (by Francine Rivers) recently, As Sure as the Dawn. In it a stubborn, pig-headed, long-time captive, German gladiator becomes a Christian. The two sets of principles don't mix very well. He is first asked to give up his anger--the anger that has kept him alive for ten years in the arena. He fights that, but makes two very good friends, and they help. Next, he is asked to give up his lust, his only reward and pleasure during those years, to fight against strong temptation, even; he succeeds because God gifted him with a beautiful life and he had lived chained to lust and didn't want to go back. Then he is asked to give up his daily pride as his village baits him while he is trying to witness of Christ, the most important thing in his life. He struggles, daily, but gives up a bit of it, then falls, then gives up a tiny bit.
     Wasn't that enough? He was giving so much! But no--one of his dear friends was murdered by a German kinsmen, and he was told he must not seek revenge, he must turn agains the strongest code he lived by, that he must give up all anger and hatred and frustration and the desire for his own justice. He doesn't. He rebels. My thought? God, wasn't that enough? Isn't that unreasonable? Please, God, why couldn't you have let him live, and the German flourish; why this other hard lesson? Why take his strongest support? God, this is so unfair--you are asking him to give up everything, and he is not strong enough! God, this is unreasonable!
      But thinking about it later, lying in the dark, remembering that thought, I thought, of course, it is unreasonable. Look at what God loves. Look at us. The German had killed and killed and killed and killed and could not rid himself of the desire to kill again. His hatred and pride were so strong, and he went his own way rather than seek God's. He hit his wife and left her when she would not tell him who the killer was.
    Look at me. I, a sinner, whose pride and own pleasures so often become gods above my God, who persuades her conscience to quiet with good intentions that are never carried out. Selfishness and self-righteousness have become the creeds of my life; they always were there. I glory in the praise of others and scold them for mistakes while hiding my own sins. My heart does not follow his standard compassion, my will blatantly strays, myself is the center of my world. Look at what God loves! There is no reason in that love, no basis of the mind for his love for me.
     But love demands all of that, all of me. God loves me. The being whose compassion for me is endless, who is perfect, who knows all things and created every glory and beauty I have seen, from the slight, graceful tilt of the bird's wings gliding on the wind to the indescribable color of a star, who cannot sin and yet became sin for the sinners who hated him, this being loves me. This being, who is worthy of all worship and praise and honor and glory, who it is so easy to love when He is seen, he loves me unreasonable, irrevocably.
    And that unreasonable love is also borne out in his relentless demand for all of me, all sin, all scars, all stains. He will not rest till I am perfect; He has shown me myself as a statue, now stained and covered in crap and blood and cracked, disfigured in every aspect, the eyeless holes glaring above the gashed-in face. He has shown me another picture, of something unmistakably myself, yet perfect, the hands so strong and gentle, the face so lovely and beautiful and alive, the mouth worshipping without any small or mean word, the arms so ready to catch and hold and raise and heal, the person whole and more beautiful than any Mary created by man. Is it any wonder that he will not let me stop until I have given Him all, to be made like the second statue? Is it any wonder his love unreasonably demands everything?
    He has given everything to us. Let us give all to him, for, when seen as they are, we realize all things are His anyway, and for Him to ask that of us is not unreasonable, only hard, but with Him all things are possible, ALL things. And, in the end,

And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.

And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light,

and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth

wil bring their glory into it, and its gates will never by shut by day--and there will be no night there.

They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will

ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those

who are written in the written in the Lamb's book of life [...] the throne of God

and the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face,

and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more.

They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light,

and they will reign for ever and ever.

    In the end, we will be completely His, and we will look like Him. In the end, His love will have all, and we will be changed, and we will see that all His demands were good, all His commands wise and given in love, and every law a help to us as we live. His love, which loves us, is unreasonable, but His demands, the demands of God on His saved, are not. God, may we fully follow you!

Thinking Things

       There are plenty of things to think about. The image of sitting, thinking slowly, more noticing things, the sound of the wind, the quiet of the sky, the different in shade between the navy blue-black and the dark gray of a cloud, and then the car going by. It was white. It was to my right, in front of my, to my left, there and than not in an instant, and somewhere in my mind the slow thought compared the speed, the rushing, the instantaneous travel and movement of the car to American life and wondered what my slow stillness was. It was probably left over from the grocery story I'd written (and posted earlier) in this blog.
     I could think about God's character, trying to divine how to focus on it, to bring my mind to feel the wonder and awe that true thought and sight of Him must bring. He is the God of all the universe and Lord of all I am, broader, deeper, higher, more far-reaching than I can comprehend--and yet I have such trouble focusing on Him. I could think about how to learn that discipline (I know that music is a great help, when--and only when--the songs are chosen carefully, both true and excellent in melody and lyrics; His word, too--such a marvel, a puzzle, the layers and yet the simple truth of it! It told more of His character than I have discovered).
     I could think about my desire to ponder profound things, my wish to retain the excellence of mind I tried to practice once, turning over the irony of wishing for something so deep while thinking something so mind-numbing. Blah.
      But all of these come up empty; all of these give nothing but a moment' distraction from the quite, the unease of the silence that reveals to oneself who one is, what one is thinking, if one is self-introspective and aware; if one tends to critique one's own thoughts and emotions as a distant and yet biased judge. It is the quiet that allows no escape from the thoughts and emotions of the self. It is the lack of distraction that is so seldom available in an American culture where distraction till can equate with irritation, and yet to be without it would be novel and perhaps uncomfortable.
     It is only when I peel back the layers to what I am feeling and thinking, what I am and why I am, and how I can surrender all of that to God, that the silence becomes rest. In his hands, there is no unease, for I know He will make me all I should be. Only my own impatience for this certain work to be done mars that rest. God, give me the strength to surrender, and the faith to wait. In the name of Christ, amen.