I’ve never made much of Valentine’s Day. But this year I want to break my recent rhythm of blogging on Saturdays with a special post to celebrate Valentine’s Day.
I could write about the things I love most about my Love. His pursuit of my heart that still surprises me at every turn. His fierce, fiery love that puts Himself between me and everything that might separate me from Him. His patient gentleness.
But the prayer on the bathroom mirror catches me once again, God awakening me a little more to the wonder of the words. “I am no longer mine own but thine. . .” They open into a world of possibility, but I often trip on the threshold before I can more than glimpse the marvel that lies beyond. What treasure hides beyond the words? What gift that I fail to see?
1) I don’t have final say in my choices.
When I trip over the prayer, it’s over this step that I stumble: I no longer have the final say in my choices. “Thy will be done.” This is where the fear grabs. What if God’s will is different than my own? (It often is.) What if the road I have to travel hurts? (It often does.)
But what if God loves me and doesn’t just want to use me? (Isn’t that the real question beneath our fear of releasing control? “Is God really for me?”) When I see, for a moment, that He truly loves and wants me, not just space in my life, then His perfect love begins to replace the fear with wonder. Then I discover that, though I often still wrestle to release control, I don’t struggle alone. Even in the fight to surrender, I belong to the One who whispers, “I just want you to trust me that it’s okay.” It’s okay to offer the still-struggling heart to the God-man who once sweat blood in His own agonized wrestle to surrender to His Father’s will. He always welcomes the heart that knows it can’t surrender on its own, and cries over it, “Blessed!”
And when He does in me what I can’t do in myself and gives me grace not to run from His love, I realize again that I never want to be anywhere but in the place to which He is drawing me.
I hear it in her voice. She has experienced this. In the midst of chemo and infections and 48 hours of no sleep, she has had the most incredible two days of God touching one person after another through her. She speaks it straight: these years of this cancer journey, too many broken bones to count, two unthinkably horrible stem cell transplants – these have been the best years of her life. She would not trade them. For in them she has learned to dance with Jesus, His life flowing into her and through her, loving her and loving others through her in ways she had not dreamed possible.
This is where the hard news becomes the great news. It’s true, we’re joined to Christ in his death, and that means both receiving his death died on our behalf and entering into it through trading our own will for the will of the Father. But though we’re joined in death, we’re not joined for death. We’re joined for life. (John 10:10) Not having final say in my choices is a wonderful thing when the One who has the final say is the One who loves me more perfectly than I can fathom. “He whose heart is kind beyond all measure gives unto each day what He deems best. . .”
2) I don’t have final responsibility for myself.
“The protection of his child and treasure is a charge that on himself he laid.” He promises provision (Ephesians 5:29-30; Matthew 6:25-34), protection (“I am yours; save me!” Psalm 119:94; Isaiah 41:10), and perfection that doesn’t depend on me (Hebrews 10:5-18; Ephesians 5:25-27; Philippians 3:9). Each of those needs a book. I’m not even going to attempt a sentence.
3) I am securely and eternally loved.
I am known completely. This is a such a comfort when I realize again that I don’t understand the first thing about myself. It doesn’t matter. I am known. (Psalm 139) And in the context of that total knowing, I am loved perfectly, without having to strive for it or earn it or cling to it in fear that the love will let go. I have been chosen forever (Ephesians 1, especially vv. 11-14). And in Christ, I am given fullness (Colossians 2:10). In this world where death and life cling close together in the already-not yet, the fullness is experienced as less than complete, the aching beauty of the intimate now mingled with the longing for final and forever consummation. But it’s a taste that makes us sure: The LORD is good, and we are loved. The invitation is open and the promise given to all who will taste and see. How can we run from this?
(Hymn quotes from the wonderful “Day by Day” by Karolina Sandell-Berg. Savor the full text here while you soak in the music here.)
