I was reading an article today about these two people that were supposedly in this passionate, explosive relationship and the guy was describing it saying: “The love swept us away. We made our own different reality. It was special, it was a little crazy, a little wild – we didn’t exercise caution or self-restraint. I think we were both very much in love.”

Now, I dont know about you, but something about that tugged a little at my heart. It sounds exciting. I want that. Its the kind of love we ‘oooh’ and ‘awww’ at when we hear about from our friends in relationships, the kind of love we dream about finding when ‘that’ song is played on the radio and the kind of love we watch in movies like ‘A Walk To Remember’ and let it touch us to the point of tears and that we can shout most of the lines with the actors at the screen from the amount of times we have watched it. They are our favourite movies after all!

Something about reckless abandon and love just fits. It clicks. It seems right, and it seems like we deserve it. And we just cant wait for it to show up and knock us off our feet. But why is it we call over our girlfriends for late night sleepovers that revolve around gushing and swooning about the lucky day that happens but when we apply those exact same sentiments, that same reckless abandon to God we struggle with that idea?

God is Dad, I obey Him. God is my Best friend, I’ll talk to him. But God is my lover, I’ll fall crazily-madly in love with Him and let him sweep me so off my feet that I can’t help talking about how sweet He is to all my friends and I cant help but let my heart break for what breaks His and I can’t help but only go where I can take Him with me because I like to hold His hand everywhere I go? No thank you.

Why is it we would all jump with joy if that man who caught our eye at church asked us out on a date for Valentine’s, but the idea of going to church with a rose to spend time sitting with our Creator seems pathetic and something to mock someone about? Why is it when one of our friends’ relationship goes official, tons of people like the photos they put up of themselves and comment about how cute and lucky they are but the idea of us posting a status about how much God has won our heart would make people want to click off the page as quickly as possible? Why is it our hearts sprint at a million beats per minute when that attractive man looks our way but when we open our Bibles and read His eternal promises, dripping with the unconditional love of His sacrifice, we find it difficult to not fall asleep? Why do we spend energy and time trying to find out the things the men we are interested in like and dislike (and coincidentally they start becoming the things we like or dislike!) but we’re more than happy to know the bare minimum of what Christ likes from us?

Isn’t it funny that it was all His idea anyway – this big old fairytale where we get fought for and rescued from our lonely misery to get lost on this epic adventure with the One who would die for us – but we refuse spending those desires on the One who created them and would rather spend them on that which He created? Isn’t it funny because in fact He’s actually the only One whose genuinely worth it, who genuinely deserves it.

Christ alone died for our hearts, Christ alone deserves our hearts. All of our hearts.

Have you ever thought that maybe it’s not too much of a bad idea to love Jesus with that much zeal and fervour the way we’d love our boyfriends or husbands one day, not being able to make it through an hour without thinking of them, always finding little ways to sneak in a little for time with them during your day. You see that’s how love was meant to work. It shouldn’t be any different because we are talking about God. If anything it should be more! His love is the most extravagant love, we’ll taste. Just think of the day you’ll see him face to face and you take that first look into the One whose eyes blaze with a jealous fire over you! But dont think of how you’ll feel, instead think of the happiness when He sees you (it’s that way in weddings – if we want to see joy, we look in the grooms face). If for the joy set before Him he endured the cross, can you imagine what will happen when he finally gets hold of that joy? When he finally grabs us and never lets go of our hands?

You are His joy. You are the life Christ died to save.

One day Jesus will gaze at us with satisfaction, and every bit of struggle, every bit of fighting I did to make Him my everything, my one and only True Love, every idol I refuse to flirt with, every time I refuse to exchange His role as my number one Comforter and Provider and Lover in my life for a man, every time I love him like crazy-all those times will be worth it. They won’t only be worth it, I’ll probably wish I’d have been more crazy for Him!