What is love?

   Sam sat in his car in front of a local grocery store with the motor running. He had just stopped for a few items on his way home from work. Before he put the car in reverse to back out of his space, he sat for a few moments, contemplating everything that he'd experienced over the past year. His mind raced from moment to moment as he tried to make sense of it all. It had been an incredibly tumultuous year for him. Just thinking about all of the changes he'd been through left his head spinning.
  Throughout all of his adult life, Sam had been running from God. He could think back to multiple occassions over the years when he knew beyond a doubt that God had called out to him, but he had rejected that call time after time.
   This time was different. He knew that God had shown up once again, but this time it was with such clarity it was impossible to ignore any longer. He began to attend a local church, and began to feel God's calling even stronger. Being newly married, he went home to his new wife and told her that he truly believed that God was calling him. He explained how he had felt this many times before in his life, but had ignored it. He went on to say that he couldn't ignore it anymore.
   This didn't go over well. His wife couldn't understand why he needed to follow anything. She argued that he should just go to church like most other people and not dive so deeply into his faith. After all, only crazy people believe that God truly speaks to them. What she knew deep down inside was that this changed everything. Hearing him say that from now on he was going to ask God what the next step in his life should be and then follow His instruction as it arrived meant that there could be no major decisions made unless it was clear to him that God had spoken to him. This sounded like absolute insanity to her.

   Within a few months, and after many heated arguments, Sam had come home to find his new wife with another man. She had decided she'd rather pursue a new relationship with someone else than to stay with a man who believed that God spoke to him. She was convinced he had lost his mind. A few months later, she moved out and filed for divorce.

   Sam shook off these thoughts, put the car in reverse and backed out of the parking space. As his car came to a stop, he realized that he was facing his ex-wife's car which was stopped at the intersection next to the store. He sat and watched as she made a left turn, drove a few blocks, then turned into the apartment complex where Sam knew her new boyfriend lived. Sadness gripped his heart as he thought about how much he'd loved her when they met, how he would've given her anything she'd ever wanted, and how she had now left him for someone else.

   He pulled out of the parking lot with tears in his eyes and looked up. "I really didn't need to see that, God.......... That really hurt." he said under his breath.

   It was at that very moment when he felt as though God spoke directly to his heart, saying: "Sam, that's exactly how I've felt everytime you've turned from me and chased after things you believed at the time were more important."

   Sam pulled over, feeling an incredible sense of guilt and remorse. He'd never imagined that his ignoring God would hurt God as much as seeing this had hurt him. He bowed his head as tears began running down his face. "I'm so sorry, Lord.......I'm so sorry......Please forgive me. I never thought I was hurting you." he whispered through shallow breaths, his heart breaking as never before.

   This week, we heard Pastor Steve speak on Proverbs 31. If you're as familiar with this chapter as I am, you'll know that it's the story of "The Godly Wife." In his lesson, he spoke of how we can have this incredibly intimate relationship with God, very similar to what we might find in a marriage. I'd never read that chapter with that perspective before, but the more I thought it over, the more sense it made.

   Over the past 24 hours, countless bible stories and verses came to mind as I dove further into this subject. In Romans 8:38-39, we read:

^" For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,  neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

   Furthermore, in Matthew 22:36-40, we read:

 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

  Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

   And, of course, in John 3:16, we read:

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

   I have to confess to you that I've read these verses many times. I've been told countless times that God loves me. I've believed that too. But I never once allowed the depth of His love for me to really sink in to the level that it has over the past 24 hours. Why? Because I never once considered that the love He feels for me is the same type of love we might find within marriage. While I fully understand that it goes even deeper than that, and that nothing here on earth can even come close to describing God's love for us, this still gives us something tangible, doesn't it?

   Have you ever loved someone unconditionally? Have you ever been loved unconditionally? If so, that's as close as we can ever come to understanding. If not, then it makes it even more difficult to absorb. But it's still there if we can just take a moment to allow that thought to settle in.

   What feelings do you have for the one person you love more than anyone you've ever loved in your entire life?.............Don't move past that thought..........linger there for awhile. That's the closest we will ever come to understanding how much God loves us.

   So, what would you do for this person you love? What wouldn't you do for them? How would you speak to them? What would you say? That's how God loves us. That's how He wants us to love Him. If we can just rest in that.............It would be beautiful beyond words.