If you look back at one of my earlier posts you will notice that I asked myself the question "Who is God to me?" I then went on to discuss some of the characters that make up God and how they relate to me. Recently, in a conversation with nearly a complete stranger, an interesting concept was brought up. She mentioned the idea of God as a lover. This isn't the first time I have thought of something like this, but never thought of it as that word. To be completely honest, when she first mentioned it I was caught off guard. God? A lover? The thought at first was awkward, but I quickly remembered the Bible. The Bible mentions numerous places that the church is the bride of Christ (among similar notions). For a reference to such places check out this website: http://www.jimfeeney.org/brideofchrist.html.
The first thing that made me think of the concept of God as a lover was something I heard in class or chapel. I thought about people and facebook, and how these things could relate to God. One of the first things I think of when I think of facebook is addiction and obsession. However, though it is a bit awkward, I then thought of facebook stalking. I feel if we were all honest with each other we would admit to a bit of facebook stalking at one point or another. Think about it, who hasn't spent time looking at a guy or girls page for no reason other than they thought they liked them? Have you ever been dating someone and then checked everything they did on facebook? Not in a creepy or possessive way, but in a curious, cute, wanting to know them as best as possible kind of way? Do you see where I am going?
I think if Jesus had a facebook he would want us to stalk him. He wants us to dig into everything we can about him. Is it a bad idea to know how Jesus is working in our friends lives, or even strangers lives? Shouldn't we seek to know him better in every single way? Would it really be that bad to stalk Jesus if we define stalking to be pursuing closely, following intently, desiring to know everything about, and/or obsessing over? I think that we should. Some people take facebook stalking to an unhealthy level of obsession and I am obviously not recommending this or encouraging it. However, people sometimes think they love someone and then become obsessed with this "love" and unhealthily become stalkers. Stalking a person out of love will only bring an insatiable desire for more. However, "stalking" Jesus should only satisfy and cause a healthy hunger for more. I know that the use of the term stalking is often negative, but I hope that you are seeing the conclusion that I am trying to make. It makes perfects sense to me, but trying to get others to see conclusions that I have discovered is something I sometimes struggle with.
The point being, we should pursue God with the same (or more) vigilance that we do other things in our lives. We spend every waking minute pursuing things that we love. Some examples of things people love are: research, books, video games, music, movies, relationships, and adventure. When we love something we have an unquenchable desire for more. However, the problem I see is that we love things other than God. We place God lower in our list of desires. People who stalk people on facebook want to learn and know everything they can about a particular person. If stalking Jesus means wanting to learn and know everything about Him, I see this as nothing but positive and wholesome. (Ok, I realize that we need to do something with the things we learn from "stalking" Jesus, but thats a different topic, and one must start a craving Jesus first)
Hopefully you have followed me thus far with little to no confusion in the end.
Anyway, I realize that I have never been married or had a lover. However, I have dated, and in some perhaps minuscule way this is a taste of what a lover would be. I know that when you really like someone (at least you think) you want to spend as much time with them as possible. Your desire to be with them becomes your greatest desire. This is what it would be like to have Jesus/God as a lover. God IS with us every single moment, but we are not always with Him. Seeing God as a lover kind of puts a light into many situations. As a matter of fact, until God is accept and seen as a lover, I am not sure humans have any right to get married. How can we expect to be a good lover with another human if we are incapable of being a lover with the perfect Almighty? After all, God created love, God is love, and only through Him can we ever hope to truly love. After seeing that God is the perfect lover, and that we can be his lover, should we consider attempting to be a lover with someone else.
Another interesting thing I found was from the book Desire, by John Eldredge. I have yet to read the book but found this from someone's facebook status a week ago. (thanks!)
"God creates mankind for intimacy with himself, as his beloved. We see it right at the start, when he gives us the highest freedom of all-the freedom to reject him. The reason is obvious: love is possible only when it is freely chosen. True love is never constrained; our hearts cannot be taken by force. So God sets out to woo his beloved..."Wow. I think that basically summed it up for me when I first saw that. After having thought about God being a lover over break, my realizations with facebook stalking, and then this status I knew that God as a lover was a great way to view Him. This is just one more way that we can view the entire person of God. For me, God as a lover is a challenging thing because like any relationship it is a commitment. A commitment with God goes beyond a lifetime commitment, its eternal. How much more important is this commitment than any one I could make with a human under the title "lover"?
1 John 4:19 says "We love because he first loved us." My challenge this time is to consider this: God is already committed to me as being a lover, have I accepted this; do I desire to be God's lover and have Him be mine? Personally, I choose yes, no matter the consequence, no matter the commitment, and no matter the sacrifice. This simply means that I have to submit to God and accept Him as all His other persons as well.
Your friend, brother, and companion in Christ,
Zach Haas
