Smitten With Love

At ATF, most of the weekend was spent talking about love. We talked about how to listen to love. This was about who and/or what our identity is based. We talked about loving sacrificially, and we talked about romantic love. To start the weekend though, we talked about our love for God and His love for us.

In my opinion, this was right on target because without this foundation, the other topics might be good but they are not going to be lasting. If we don't love God completely, then our faith is going to be shaky at best. Jesus understood this...which is why, when asked about the most important commandment, said "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." (Matthew 22:37)

It's at this point that I think a lot of people stumble. While this sounds simple, many people ask..."Why?". Why should I love God? What has God done for me? I've had really hard times. My life has been hard. What does God know about me? Why would God love me? It's really hard for us to love one way. Meaning, if you do not have love being returned, then it can be nearly impossible to really love with all your heart, soul, and mind. Many people, I think, feel like this is what Jesus is telling them to do.

Here is where many people miss the boat. The fact, that is often missed, is that God is completely crazy about you. He is absolutely smitten with love over you. Smitten is a fun word. It can mean very much in love, captivated, enamored, devoted, passionate, wild, charmed.

I think back to when Nikki and I were dating. She was in college and was living life based on a college schedule. If you aren't sure what I mean, most people in college will sleep in late, or take naps during the day if they have to get up early, and then stay up late. Many times when I was in college, I would start a movie, card game, Bible study, grocery store run, etc around midnight. That was common. Well, when we were dating, I was working full time and wasn't on the college schedule any longer. But, I would sit in my living room waiting for her to call at all hours of the night. I remember one time, Nikki was going to call around 11:30. I sat there and eventually fell asleep with the phone in my lap. She called around 12:30 or 12:45. Was I mad? No! I woke up and we talked for an hour or more. I was enamored.

Then, when I decided to ask Nikki to marry me, I wanted to impress her. I wanted the proposal to be thoughtful and sweet. I wanted it to be memorable. I wanted to show her how much I loved her. So, I planned. On Labor Day of 2000, I had the day off work. Nikki was a senior at Jewell and didn't have the day off. This allowed me to secretly make preparations. I told Nikki that our college group was meeting at the church for a prayer meeting. I had one of her friends drive her up to the church as part of the plan. Her friend, conveniently, forgot something in the car and Nikki came up to the sanctuary by herself. I stood at the front waiting for her. When she came in, she saw the rose petals that I had spread down the aisle. She walked down to me and we sat down together, and I read 1 Corinthians 13 (the love chapter) while fighting back tears. Then, we stood and I told her how much she meant to me. I explained that I wanted her to spend the rest of her life with me. I lowered to a knee and then asked if she would marry me. We prayed together and then danced to the song "Amazed" by Lonestar. After this, we went to a surprise party for her at the parsonage. Pretty much our entire college group was there. I even bought a cake to celebrate. I really wanted the night to be perfect. I was, and still am, smitten.

When it comes to God's love for each of us and my love for Nikki, it's not even close. God is much more smitten about us. There are two parables that Jesus used to describe how smitten He is about each of us.

The first is the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11). A man has two sons. The younger decides he doesn't want to wait until the father dies for his inheritance. He wants the money now. So, the dad divides the inheritance and gives the younger son his share. The son wastes ALL of the money with prostitutes and ends up in the pig sty. This has to be the worst possible situation for a Jew. He is feeding pigs! He is so hungry that the food they are eating looks good to him. The son decides to go home and beg his father for a lowly servants position. He knows that even his father's least of servants have a better situation than him. But, when the father sees him returning, he is elated. He loves his son so much that he completely overlooks the past mistakes and runs to meet him.

The other parable is the story of the shepherd with the lost sheep (Luke 15:1). A man has 100 sheep but loses one. He can't stop thinking about the one sheep. He is consumed with desire to find the sheep. He finally decides to leave the 99 sheep and find the one missing sheep. He searches and searches until he finds the lost sheep. He was devoted to his sheep and was willing to search until it was found. He is overjoyed. He not only brings the sheep back but picks it up and carries it triumphantly all the way home.

In Psalm 139:17-18, David says this about God's love for us:

"17How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!

18 Were I to count them,

They would outnumber the grains of sand.

When I awake,

I am still with you."

I think there are some passages that we kind of glide over when reading the Bible. I don't know how many times I've read this chapter and I've never put any thought into this particular passage. To really consider this though is breath taking. How many grains of sand do you think you could hold in your hand? Now think about the amount of grains of sand that cover the Earth. The University of Hawaii did a study to estimate the number of grains of sand on the Earth. Well, it's more of a mathmatical equation and there are assumptions involved. However, they found that there are 7.5 X 10^18 grains of sand on the Earth. This number may not seem very real to you. So, here is a visual image of the entire number written out.

7,500,000,000,000,000,000

For those of you who don't know how to say this number (I didn't either). It is 7 quintillion 500 quadrillion. Those are a LOT of thoughts. According to the Center for Disease Control, 78 years is the average life expectancy in the United States. In 78 years, there are 2,459,808,000 seconds. When you divide these numbers, it means that God thinks about us approximately 3 billion times per second. Talk about passionate obsession.

In the New Testament, Jesus says that even the hairs of our head are all numbered (Matthew 10:30 and Luke 12:7). Think about this for a moment. God knows how many hairs we have. Can you imagine your significant other, parent, or friend even wanting to know this information? I got a bit of a chuckle out of this when I was thinking about it. Actually, the chuckle was mainly thinking of Nikki's reaction as she wakes up in the morning and looks over at me. I have a big, goofy grin on my face. "Guess what I did last night" I say. "I counted your hair. You have 102,425 hairs. I stayed up all night counting. I would have gotten a couple hours sleep but I lost track the first time when I hit 73,004."

God loves us to the detail. He knows absolutely everything about us. He knows what we like and dislike. He knows our strengths and weaknesses. He knows our greatest dreams. He knows our heart. He can see every good thought and desire. But, He can also see every evil and terrible thoughts and desires we have. The things that we are ashamed of. Our past failures. The addiction, depression, anger, unforgiveness, bitterness, lies...anything we hide from others because we don't want them to think less of us. God knows everything about it. Everything. This could be terrible. God, who created the universe from nothing, could have decide we are not worth saving. He could have decided that we are past help, past forgiveness. But, it's not terrible. Because God loves us in spite of those things. God loves us enough to pay the ultimate price for us. He didn't wait until we became "good" people. He didn't wait for us to seek Him out or punish ourselves. He is smitten and He, Jesus, died for us while we were in our sin (Romans 5:8).

As Christians, when it comes to loving God and loving others, many of us talk the talk. We make grandiose promises about what we will do, who we will be for the person we love. However, few of us actually live up to all of those promises. God not only talks the talk, but He walks the walk. This video illustrates this well.

It is much easier to love God with all of your heart, soul, and mind when we remember how much He loves us. His love is complete, personal, and perfect. All of us have had human love fail us. But God's love will never fail. He is waiting, with open arms, for us to run to him. Please don't take His love for granted. He can, and will, change your life forever if you give your life to Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter that you have sinned. It doesn't matter if you have rejected God in the past. He loves you and is ready to take His place in your heart.