Messy Love

I came across this video a while ago and the song has been stuck in my head this morning so I looked it up again.  I really like the song, but I always thought it was a little simplistic. It sings about how God loves us. But I don’t think God’s love is quite as simplistic as we tend to generalize it.  It is extremely easy to brush over the phrases “God is love” or “God loves you” or on and on, probably because I’ve heard them for my entire life.  There are times when I can comprehend God’s love for me more than other times.  Normally it is when I have gone through something that has hurt me emotionally or made me question life in its entirety.  I experienced this last summer.  I was so sure my life was going to go one direction and it suddenly went a completely different way.

It of course had to do with being interested in a guy who ended up liking someone else.  I think if a guy ever wants to get married he should just have me like them; men seem to meet the one they are going to marry as soon as I get emotionally attached.  I remember mentally yelling at God during this time and basically telling him He didn’t know what it was like to intensely like someone so much and have them not return the feelings. 

Oops. I instantly felt like he was yelling right back at me and reminding me of generations of people who have not loved him back.  There was the first time with Adam and Eve, then the Israelites who were his people that he did more for than I could ever mention in this post, and they turned away from him over and over again….then the people Jesus physically preached to who rejected, beat, and killed him, and then there is us.  Even as Christians it is hard to grasp God’s love.  We try to not conform to those around us, but can end up instead trying to follow too many rules and come across as trying to be better than everyone and judgmental, and because it is impossible to be perfect we can come across as hypocritical.  Instead of trying to follow all of these rules it is just love that God wants from us.  The rest falls in place naturally after that.  I don’t mean just regular love.  When you love God more than anything then you want to love the people he loves.  Us messy, sloppy, problematic humans.  You see others as God sees them and want to love them to the point of putting their needs in front of yours, and not just the easy people to love.  Lastly God reminded me of how often I have turned away and He’s been there for me.  I have definitely done my share of sins and hypocrisy and now continually thank Him for grace and know that I could never be good enough on my own.

 I really like in the clip below how the writer of the song talks about the love in this song being meant as a love that is willing to love something messy, gross, and difficult.  It is easy to love things that are pretty and clean and hard to love the messy.