A Love Story--I think?

I want every love story to have a happy ending. Too many don't. Our understanding of love is so twisted that it takes a lot of hard work to understand how and why things must happen as they may. Think about it. Somehow we've gotten the idea that if God loves us, He wouldn't let hurricanes ripe through and devastate lives, or earthquakes kill thousands, not the God I know. Every time I hear about the latest natural disaster or yesterday's terrorist bombing or someones parental heartbreak or a good friend's diagnosis of cancer, a voice inside me whispers, "God, I know you are in control, but tell me again: You are Good?"
Maybe our twisted understanding of love boils down to this: because God is love, the abundant life that Jesus promised us means an abundance of blessings. Where did we get that idea? Certainly not from the Old Testament, which I am just finishing up reading. Jesus made it clear that life, real life--the life He died to give us, does not center on nice homes, happy families, and good health in a safe world with a booming economy. But rather on Knowing Him more, knowing Jesus' Father as our Father, in good times and in bad, and relating to that Father and everyone else the way Jesus relates. I think that is what it means to be holy. Holiness does not mean doing good things and not doing bad things. Holiness is wrapped up in consistent, relentless, love in spite of the good and the bad. So if that is what holiness is, and that is what life is really all about, then, the abundant life Jesus came to give us is an abundance not of material blessing, or of health, or protection but of an abundance of knowing God as our supreme treasure and relating to Him and to others lovingly, no matter what assortment of blessings or hardships come our way or what variety of feelings of joy, emptiness, peace, or terror, we are experiencing. After reading the Old Testament again, I realize that it is a set up for the New Testament. (some of you might be thinking daaaa) If we miss the message of the first we will miss the message of the last. Or even worse, we will pervert it or twist it and think we've got it. We will make it fit into our twisted definition of love and never be captured by the real story of love that takes our breath away. The Story that humbles us enough to change us from self-obsessed lovers of short term comfort seekers to God-obsessed lovers of others beyond any cost to ourselves.
What must needs changing is not our circumstances but the very core of who we are. Blessings in the short term are dangerous to our long-term joy. If we could use our power to make our lives work in ways that make it easy and quickly satisfying, we would become less aware than we already are of what God designed us to enjoy and pursue. We must learn to endure this life for the joy that awaits us in the next. We must learn to live in hope. True hope breeds joy and empowers love.
hmmmm what have I learned in this journey, this crimson thread running through Genesis through Malachi. In Genesis, I hear God pouring out his love to all of us as He sings this opening line of His love song: "I have a terrific plan, It's how I made you, and why I made you. You are invited into perfect relationship in this perfect world that I have created just for you." Then God shows us how we have made a perfect mess out of it. We have made serious wrong turns and are now heading away from Him and toward relational failure, loneliness, and frustration. We are more concerned to get what we want now than to trust God to give us what we need and what we most want forever. We think our approach to life is the "Christian approach". Our moral compass is so far off that we actually think we are moving in the right direction. Towards intimacy and satisfying togetherness and a joy-filled life. When actually we are heading in the wrong direction getting hopelessly far beyond His reach. We have to turn around, But we don't want to. We don't even see the need to. From Genesis on I feel God's burning anger aimed at everything that keeps us moving in the wrong direction. Something is terribly wrong inside of us that must be severely dealt with before we will even see the point of turning around. And something must change in us before we will be able to see what God is planning for us to move toward it with any real consistency. We are unholy. We have separated ourselves from God. We need to be made holy. And we need to separate ourselves for God. In Leviticus, God makes it clear that "holiness must precede true happiness" and by making us holy, getting us to turn towards Him, we will be able to relate towards others. It must be done. In Joshua we actually must "learn to hate our sin," Sin is so lodged inside of us that we assume it's just who we are, and that it is no big deal. In Judges, we learn that we have a big problem, and a stubborn one at that. God makes it clear in 1 Chronicles that until we are perfectly holy we will never be perfectly happy. We must expect to experience "emptiness now, with the promise of fullness forever." But we don't like it. We insist on our rights to immediate happiness. Since that pursuit of holiness doesn't provide us with the experience of full happiness that we so crave, we pursue our way by a different road. But we still want to see ourselves as good. We still maintain the illusion that we are still wanting and following hard after God, we think of Him as a vendor of blessings rather that a burning furnace who makes us holy. We worship the God we have created. In Ezekiel, I learned that until I recognize the evil of demanding anything from God, I will not understand how His presence will bring hope and joy and release from self-centeredness. We can stay blind, and stay on that broad road of expecting God to make our lives work. We will secure his favor and call it worship. In Amos, I learned that real worship requires real change. At this point I realize that if I am really chasing after God, if I am really worshiping God as a lifestyle, then my unholy and ugly spirit of entitlement will be slowly dislodged from its controlling place in my heart. I will sense the stirring of faith that allows me to wait in darkness with the peace of knowing the light of God's love will one day shine brightly enough for all to see.
Even now, as I face the ugliness within me that shakes my fist at God as I tell Him what to do. I can still realize and celebrate with confidence that everything ugly will be made beautiful. In Jonah, I learned how God's ways defy my self-obsessed expectations of Him, and how my unholy demand that God cooperated with my agenda by transforming me to yield more deeply to God's plan. When life makes no sense, when what God is visibly doing is more frustrating than fulfilling, He wants me to still live by faith. Even when God seems absent or worse, indifferent, He wants me to wait, to feel life deeply but not to lash out in desperation, but still believe that His plan is Good, and He is in Control. In Habakkuk I learned that He is loving me even if I don't see it. God tells me in Zephaniah that He is not committed to making me happy now with the blessings of life. I do believe, but I don't always like what I believe. Haggai follows up by reassuring me that God has the power to make me holy. To stir a passion within me that wants to bring Him pleasure, a holy passion that can successfully compete with my already strong but unholy passion that wants to persuade Him to bring me pleasure now on my terms. So God tells me in Zechariah to believe what I do not see, that a good plan is unfolding and the Love story is continuing. God I must confess, that I am blind, and sometimes I JUST DON"T SEE IT. I struggle to see the sheer goodness of His plan. A plan that flows from a pure heart. But He still tells me to wait hopefully. So what do I feel now, I feel hopeful and discouraged, expectant and impatient, warmed by God's love and beaten down by His wrath. The battle goes on. I want to know God, to follow Him, to be His servant, His friend. He has promised to make all things new. God has awakened me to the realization that this world as it is now is not my home and I am not who He wants me to be. As I take this leap from the Old Testament to the New my discouragement yields to hope, my impatience gives way to expectancy, and a new life arises out of death. As I open my Bible to Matthew, I do so with glad surrender. He has heard my cry for mercy, He has come to build His kingdom in me, and in this world. Hope stirs with me. He move towards me, slowly and purposefully. With a smile, with hope and with eyes filled with love. He gently rests His right hand on my forehead. He looks me directly in the eye, with holy fire and a quiet love, His eyes and His lips move. He is about to speak. Let me listen. I am ready to hear.