Like and Love in the Kingdom (and a song about it)
This is a song about being willing to lose everything on this earth, to be with Jesus. I pray it blesses you on your journey and encourages you to throw off any weight that hinders that connection.
When we say ‘I Do’. We are committing, promising, and covenanting to love that other person for the rest of their or our life. This is what a marriage covenant is founded upon, it is each individual, making a decision at the beginning of the journey that no matter how hard it gets, they won’t leave or turn their back on the other. Love is like the parameters, or borders that we agree to put in place to keep us together. It is also like a foundation that we are then able to build upon.
All of this is no different in the Kingdom. It is God’s covenant that He made with us to enter into a relationship that does not end and will continue forever. It is the foundation for our journey with Him and it is His promise to never leave or turn His back on us. He is committed to keeping His promise to us even if we spend a lifetime as a contentious Bride. Even if we never pursue a deeper relationship with Him, He still holds to His covenant of love.
Most people go into marriage thinking that life is going to be more fun. They search until they find their soulmate and are convinced that once they tie the knot, everything will work out just fine. Come to find out, however long it takes, that this wasn’t all happy dreams and fun. It is painful and hurtful and hard work to walk with someone in unity. You see, a marriage covenant is the context that provides the opportunity for growth and change. It provides the time and space for someone to look at themselves and perceive what cannot be seen in an instant, but takes time to unravel.
We are complex beings who have been placed in an environment where pain and trauma exist. We are daily given the opportunity to be defeated by circumstances or fight through them, but there is not another choice. Even avoidance is in actuality, defeat. If we are going to grow and change in good ways and become better people, then we must surrender situations that cause our weaknesses to be unveiled. This is the ground level purpose and function of Love. To tie us to the place where change is necessary, required, and has the opportunity to do its work.
However, ‘Like’, is different. To enjoy someone, how they are made, how they communicate, how they perceive you and the world around them, this is different than love.
It is possible to like someone without loving them. You can do all the things involved with liking someone and never commit to a covenant with them, where you can grow together in a bond of love. And equally intriguing, you can love someone without liking them. It is possible to be in a covenant that you are committed to keeping and not enjoy the person on the other side of it.
Before I go on, I want to make it clear that there is hope for any relationship where this is the reality, however, I am not speaking of the relationship between two humans, but of the journey between we as humans and the Divine.
God loves us, this is a promise and a guarantee, but He does not like every part of us. This may come as a shock to some and with others it may hit a very sensitive button. I do not believe that God is enjoying the parts of the relationship and your personhood, that are causing division between He and you. He sees it this way: If it is causing division between He and you, then it is an enemy. How do you deal with an enemy? Well, for too long we’ve coddled the parts of us that we have not desired to change and have constructed theologies surrounding them in order to protect them and our ears from His call to freedom. There are identities, addictions, fears, and more that have become welcomed parts of our lives. He does not like these parts, therefore He does not like all of who we are currently. But, He loves us and His love provides the context for us to be free from those things if we will simply see them as defiling and as gross as He sees them. We would be fools to enter into a marriage covenant and not expect to be changed. It is the nature of the covenant to change two individuals that are very different into a union where strengths outweigh weaknesses and unity keeps us warm through the coldest of seasons. It is no different with our relationship with God. We must come to Him and surrender to His path of freedom, healing, and change.
I am convinced that God’s love is unconditional and unable to be earned. But His intimacy, now that requires a journey of sacrifice. It is only for those who would put true and deep friendship with the Lord at the center of their hearts before all else. It is for the ones who count the journey of freedom as a sacred path and although endurance of pain is not easy or always rejoiced in, they continue walking in that direction because they understand the reward. To be known by heaven as a friend of God.
For too long we’ve followed a false doctrine that says God is okay with all of us, no matter how we are living, that He likes us just the way we are. This is simply untrue. He loves us just the way we are in order that we will be able to be transformed into something that He actually likes as well. The fulness of the kingdom is only experienced by those who are willing to die to themselves in every area. This is a lifetime journey; it is not a simple prayer and quick fix. But it is obvious who is on that path and who is not, based on whether you willingly cry out to the Lord to change you, no matter the cost.
Are we a people that are okay with a distant relationship with the only One who can truly satisfy us? Or are we those that will lay everything on the altar and say “burn it all as long as I get to be with You.”
This is your decision to make, friend. I challenge you to take a moment and ask Him to reveal any areas in your life that He doesn’t like, and then surrender them to His process of change. Believe me when I say, you will rejoice when you do. For out of that decision comes the abundant life.