When I was a child, I knew my dad loved me. I knew he was there if I needed him. I still have a vivid memory of waking up in his arms as he carried me once when I just collapsed while we were working on my moms car. I knew he loved me, but as a child, I don’t think you can understand, how much a parent loves a child
When Jesus turned to Peter at the end of the book of John, He asked him: “Simon, son of John, do you burn with love for me more than these?”
(John 21:11 – He asked him this after breakfast… because really, a man shouldn’t be tackling big thoughts on an empty stomach!)
So as I am chewing on a piece of leftover pizza, I am wondering about this… do I understand love? Not the Hollywood, fiction writer love, but True Love… Not the written dictionary definitions. Not what the world describes, but the original, base state of God?
When Jesus asks Peter, He asks if Peter’s burning love is so intense that it will set fire to those that come close? (Literally He uses the word Hooba which in its root form means to set fire to something)
I thought that I only really started understanding love when I became a parent. But I have come to realize that God, in His infinite wisdom, is even teaching me about love through life.
When I was a child, I understood love as a child. Someone that is always there that makes sure you are more or less ok. I started identifying that there is a love going two ways… care. And like a child, I was terrible at it. I could consume love, and attempted, like a bad drawing, to give back love.
Then I awoke to passion. I met a blonde bombshell with a smile that made me melt and golden hair that always waved in slow motion. And when she accidentally brushed against me, electricity sparked up my arm and short circuited my brain. And I became familiar with stupid love.
Or as dr Seuss says:
“Cause when a guy does something stupid once, well that’s because he’s a guy. But if he does the same stupid thing twice, that’s usually to impress some girl.”
But really, this love that keeps growing is just to teach me about passion, about a burning love, to channel a feeling into a decided action.
And then God generously gave me children, and the two came together in an all consuming, burn the village of my enemies, passionate protective care!
And then I understood Song of Songs:
“Place this fierce, unrelenting fire over your entire being.
Rivers of pain and persecution
will never extinguish this flame.
Endless floods will be unable
to quench this raging fire that burns within you.
Everything will be consumed.
It will stop at nothing
as you yield everything to this furious fire
until it won’t even seem to you like a sacrifice anymore.”
(Song of Songs 8:6-7)
And I realized…
THIS is why God will never, ever let me go…
Because the passage above describes “…the burning heart of God…” – the most vehement flame, the shalhebet-yah:
“The Mighty Flame of the Lord Most Passionate”
This is how I love my children… and this is how God the Father loves me!
