What is love?

“Love makes the world go ‘round.”

Can you know something but not really know it? Or is that so-called “head” knowledge not worthy of the name? Perhaps knowledge that is merely rote can be useful at times, and better than not having any. But surface knowledge lacks the life and intimacy of a deeper, experiential knowledge. Some call it “heart” knowledge.

I hope everyone has had the experience of enlightenment or unfolding understanding when head knowledge becomes heart knowledge, when surface knowledge becomes deep knowledge, when rote knowledge becomes real knowledge. I had this experience the day I turned twenty-one, when I truly received the mercy of God that I had only known about my whole life. What a freeing experience that was! I gained a great and growing peace that day, but it was not perfect. I have still struggled with God, mainly in the area of his love. I do not understand it.

“God is love.” (1 John 4:16) “For God so loved the world…” (John 3:16) “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us…” (1 John 3:1) I was blessed to grow up knowing that God loves me. Somehow, though, I did not believe it. I initially believed deep down that I had to earn it. When I knew his mercy, I realized I had his love no matter what. But his love seemed somehow cold. I subconsciously thought God was like a benevolent doctor, wanting the best for each of his patients, caring for them even at great personal cost, but somehow not emotionally bound up in their lives or fate. He would give his life for theirs, but did not have a close connection with them, and would not be personally devastated at their death. In other words, I saw God’s love as altruistic. Of course, in my head, I knew this was not true, but I didn’t know it.

Many people say that love is a choice, that it is a commitment to the well-being of another. It is not based on passing emotions, but on loyalty. They describe God’s love this way. I believe this is true, but if it were the whole story I would be stuck with my picture of an altruistic God. I was looking for him to really care about me, to enjoy being with me, to need me in some sense. Love with emotional attachment and affection is warm. I wondered how God could have this emotional love. We do not know what God’s emotions are like. We know he is self-sufficient and perfectly fulfilled in his Triune love. He does not need us. How could he love us?

For humans who are by nature dependent, our love and our dependence on those we love are intertwined and inextricable. The less involved we are, and therefore the less dependent, the more altruistic and distant is our love for someone. To us, uninterested love, or love that doesn’t need the loved one, seems cold. It means that the one loving would not be personally devastated by the loss of the loved one. We are told that God is an uninterested lover. He does not rely on us because he is independent by nature. How could he love us?

The Bible says that God is love. He loves because he is a lover by nature, not because he needs us in any way. His love is completely by his own choice because there is nothing in us that inherently demands his love or that he needs in order to be fulfilled. Initially, as I said, this seemed cold to me. But when I thought more about it, I realized that when someone loves because they rely on the loved one, that is a selfish love. That is mixed and impure love. True and pure love is completely selfless. So it is not desirable that God should love us out of some need. But I still didn’t know that selfless love could be truly grieved at the harm of the loved one, not because of the selfish loss the lover would experience, but because of their true interest in the well-being of their loved one. I still needed to know that there is real affection in God’s love.

I am now beginning to see that my limited perspective of God’s love limited my own love for God and even for others. I feel I could only extend this altruistic and distant type of love, though I wanted more. I have felt great affection for the Lord and gratitude for what he’s done for me, but I would feel more distant from God as I wondered whether he had affection for me. And though I knew that my view of God’s love was faulty, I didn’t know what to do about it. But God did! If he loves me passionately, with the love I was longing for, then he would not leave me in this state.

He did not! One day, he showed me how to peel off another piece of the wrapping paper on his unfathomable gift of love. At a small group meeting, we read Psalm 33, which in part reads,

⁵ “He loves righteousness and justice;

the earth is full of the steadfast love of the LORD.

¹⁸ Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him,

on those who hope in his steadfast love,

²⁰ Our soul waits for the LORD;

he is our help and our shield.

²¹ For our heart is glad in him,

because we trust in his holy name.

²² Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us,

even as we hope in you.”

We spoke about the love of God, about how it is unfailing, steadfast. It is a commitment of loyalty as well as affection. I asked whether, in his commitment to us, God felt affection for us, and our leader took us to a scripture that I had read before but had not fully pictured in my mind nor thought about the implications of:

“The LORD your God is in your midst,

a mighty one who will save;

he will rejoice over you with gladness;

he will quiet you by his love;

he will exult over you with loud singing.” Zeph. 3:17

The context of this verse is the restoration of Zion, which represents Israel and all the people of God. That full restoration is yet to come, but its spiritual reality was realized when Jesus Christ came and brought the kingdom of God. The verse reflects God’s attitude towards his people and his passionate excitement about our future with him in the new heavens and the new earth when all barriers will be taken away and God’s people will be united with him. He is so excited about us that he rejoices with great gladness over us. He shouts with joy that he has redeemed us for himself. That does not sound like dispassionate, altruistic love! That sounds like he is absolutely crazy about us!

We so often focus on our sin and our fallenness and our resulting position of condemnation before God that even when we are forgiven and reconciled to him, we fail to see that he has placed the absolutely highest value on us. We will pay for something what we believe it is worth. God thinks we are worth an unthinkably exorbitant price: his own only begotten Son, for whom and by whom the universe was made, the only one perfect in goodness, wisdom, and love. “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Rom. 8:32) In that day when God comes back and our corruptible, sinful bodies are changed in an instant into the incorruptible, new bodies that are like Christ’s (1 Cor. 15:50-58), in that day the glory that is revealed in us will be beyond comparison with any shame and suffering that we experience now. (Rom. 8:18) In that day God’s delight in us will be beyond measure, and that is how he sees us now through the righteous life and atoning blood of Jesus.

I experienced a moment of realization that I am truly valued by God and he is indeed passionate about his love for me. He does not need me; he loves me and treasures me as his precious daughter and as his Son’s betrothed.

God has gifted his beloved Son, Jesus, with a bride, the church, of which you and I are a part if we trust in him. Now he is preparing us to be his bride, clothed in white linen of beauty and purity, so let us wait for the Lord, let our hearts be glad in him, and let us hope in him because his steadfast love is upon us!

“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.” 1 John 3:1-3

Where is God when the world is falling apart?

Where is God when the world is falling apart?

After a recent study of Habakkuk, it became clear to me that the answer to this question is not an easy one. It is not the answer that we’d necessarily like to hear, but as I thought about it, it is the answer that we need. We know that God is there and he is always working, whatever the situation seems to be on the surface. If he told us what he was doing, though, we probably wouldn’t believe it!

Habakkuk asked this very question, and we get to listen in on his resulting conversation with God. He was a prophet of God, but that didn’t keep him from asking, ‘where are you, God?’ and feeling as if he had no answer. His nation had become corrupt and full of violence. Justice was a joke and oppression was increasing. The good people were being persecuted by the self-interested, unscrupulous, and ungodly people who had gained power. The nation of Judah, which had split with Israel hundreds of years earlier, had fallen away from God. The peoples of both Israel and Judah had descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They were heirs of the promises of God, partakers in the covenant with Lord. Yet the Jews as a nation had not kept their vows to God: to worship him alone, to abide by the ten commandments, to keep the law given through Moses. Therefore, their society descended into wickedness. God had told them there would be punishments for their actions. Jeremiah and Zephaniah, contemporaries of Habakkuk, prophesied against Judah that if they did not repent, they would be conquered and exiled out of their land. In the end, they were, and though they did return to the land, they did not regain true national sovereignty for two-and-a-half millennia. Habakkuk’s world was falling apart.

Habakkuk was a righteous man and was greatly distressed at all of the corruption, violence, and oppression that seemed to hem in and oppress the righteous people who remained. Day after day he prayed to God for help. Day after day he received no answer. Instead, the wickedness continued to abound, becoming ever more bold and heinous. We read his prayer: “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you ‘Violence!’ and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong?” (Hab. 1:2-3a) The Psalmist also asked God, “O Lord, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked exult?” “They crush your people, O Lord, and afflict your heritage” (Ps. 94:3, 5). God’s people grieve over the corruption and suffering around them and cry out to God for him to save their people. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for God’s people to feel as if he does not answer for a long time.

God did give Habakkuk an answer in his own timing. God said, “Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans…” (Hab. 1:5-6a). So Habakkuk understood that God was going to use the Chaldeans (also known as the Babylonians) to judge the wickedness of Judah. He feared that this did not bode well for the righteous in the land. He was horrified that the Chaldeans would defeat and oppress the people of Judah, who were still God’s chosen people. He cried out to God in dismay a second time, asking why a nation more wicked than his own should “swallow [us] up” (Hab. 1:13). However, God did not relent, because he brings justice to all and “[he] shows no partiality” (Rom. 2:11). The Lord judges the hearts of men and determines who is righteous and who is wicked based on his own standard. God told Habakkuk what the heart conditions of the Chaldeans the righteous were: “Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.” (Hab. 2:4) Habakkuk was looking at outward actions and judging the Chaldeans as more evil than his own corrupt society, but God is the only one who can judge truly and he was going to bring justice to both the Judeans and the Chaldeans in the proper time.

God’s response to Habakkuk’s second plea is to wait. “The vision” Habakkuk received will surely come to pass at the appointed time. It will hasten and not delay, even if it seems slow in coming. The vision he saw was the future judgment of the Chaldeans: woes were pronounced and those whom they had conquered and ravaged and oppressed would rise up and do the same to the Chaldeans. They will receive perfect justice. God also promised that whatever gain they would receive in the meantime would not satisfy them: “Behold, is it not from the Lord of hosts that peoples labor merely for fire and nations weary themselves for nothing?” (Hab 2:13) The Lord is the only one who will satisfy us, and he makes sure that we all eventually find that out: “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” (Hab 2:14)

God, in his message to Habakkuk, also contrasts the actions of the wicked and the righteous. He reveals that the Chaldeans worship their own strength and that they fashion idols that serve their own selfish interests. The wicked, whose soul is puffed up with arrogance, lives for himself and believes that he is the one who has made himself great. He will give favor to those that serve his own interests as long as it benefits him. On the other hand, the ones God considers righteous are the ones who live by faith. Faith is believing God even contrary to what current experience would seem to say. The righteous look to God, not themselves, and wait for what the Lord has promised he will do. (Hab 2:3,4)

God also contrasts the objects of their trust. Idols that men worship are actually made by men who are attempting to fill God’s place themselves. Men are made to worship. The idols that they worship are dead and worthless, allowing them to effectively rule their own lives, and they become dead and worthless too. We become like what we worship. In contrast, God says of himself, “But the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him.” (Hab 2:20)

Today, we see many schemes of ungodly people succeeding in turning our nation further and further from the Lord. Faith in Jesus Christ is becoming more vilified because it is seen as intolerant and exclusivist. Crime and violence have been on the rise for many years. We are dividing and fighting over race, gender, and religion. Families are falling apart. Our society has no fear of God and views the lives of the unborn as worthless. We can certainly relate to Habakkuk in his grief over his nation. Is God watching and doing nothing? Is he idly letting people get murdered, become destitute, or have their freedoms taken away? No, since we know our God and what he has done and what he has promised, the answer is absolutely not!

For the present, though, we see what Peter spoke of: “… scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.’” (2 Pet. 3:3-4)       What is the promise of his coming? “Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.” (Is. 40:10) But the scoffers do not believe that God will come and judge them for what they are doing. “For they deliberately overlook this fact, that… long ago… the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.” (2 Pet. 3:5-7) Peter agrees with Paul that men deliberately suppress their knowledge of the truth about God and his coming judgment so that they can pursue their own sinful desires (Rom. 1:18-23). God may seem slow in coming, even to those who trust in God. However, Peter tells us not to overlook the fact that God’s timing is different from ours. “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” (2 Pet. 3:9)

For Habakkuk, God’s answer was, ‘Wait, for I will accomplish justice in my timing.’ To us, he says ‘Wait and be patient for my justice. I am calling all to repent. Repent, and join me in the call.’

Habakkuk is humbled by the LORD’s answer. The book concludes with a psalm he wrote for corporate worship, to remind God’s people to have faith in their God in the midst of tragic circumstances. He looks back at all of the wonders God has performed when he saved his people in the past. He remembers the supreme greatness and majesty of his God and knows that God alone is in control and does whatever he wants. Habakkuk wants God to do wonders such as these in his own day (3:2) but realizes that God has spoken and so he submits to God’s plan in the end. When he does this, he finds out what God wanted him to know all along:

Though the fig tree should not blossom,

nor fruit be on the vines,

the produce of the olive fail

and the fields yield no food,

the flock be cut off from the fold

and there be no herd in the stalls,

   yet I will rejoice in the Lord;

I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

    God, the Lord, is my strength;

he makes my feet like the deer’s;

he makes me tread on my high places. (Hab. 3:17-19)

When Habakkuk stopped holding on to his plea for his circumstances to change, he found that he truly had everything he needed in God himself. God is our bread of life, and He is our living water, our springs flowing in the desert. (Jn. 6:35, Jer. 2:13, Is. 35:5-7) Sometimes he leads us into the deserts of life before we can discover that. Once we do, not the lushest garden on earth can compare with the joy in our souls in the presence of the Lord.

Let us look back and remember what God has done for us. He revealed it in shadows to Habakkuk, but now the mystery is revealed to us: our Lord is our atoning lamb. He himself saved us from the coming judgment by taking our punishment on himself so that we could have reconciliation and sweet communion with him, our God and the lover of our souls.

Let us live daily abiding in Christ, rejoicing in the Lord and not in any worthless idol. Our true joy and strength come from him!

Let us take joy in the God of our salvation, who is coming one day soon to rescue us from these bodies of death (Rom. 7:24-25) to bring us into the new creation where, “’He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’ And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’” (Rev. 21:4-5) Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! (Rev. 21:20)

Haiku Travels

 

A voyage 

Shining silver stream 

One blue wave on either side 

Propels the white ship 

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Waves 

Swarms of white fairies 

Dancing, laughing, storm the walls 

Regroup for one more  

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I lift my eyes to the hills 

Blue, green rivulets 

Stone and trees rising above 

The mount sings for joy 

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The path

New life breathes in old

Green mounds, tombs of ancient trees

Young and strong rising 

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Spring I

The morning silence

Filled with the smells of new life

Whispers, “Here is spring”

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Spring II

An afternoon sun

Falls on the green, newborn leaves

And begets Glory

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Spring III

With both my eyes closed

This draught, Spring’s breath on my face

Lifts me o’er mountains

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Love’s son 

Love defies reason

In the valiant valor

Shines as love’s token