I, by nature, am not a passionate person. Like a barnacle clings to the side of a ship,
I cling to my equilibrium. I do not like
excitement in any of its various presentations: roller coasters, adventure
movies, exotic vacations, even brightly colored toothpaste. A really wild, life-on-the-edge day for me
means trying a new flavor of coffee creamer.
My favorite television shows are reruns from the seventies: The
Brady Bunch, Lost in Space, Little House on the Prairie. Safe, predictable, familiar characters, all
troubles neatly resolving in 30 or 60 minutes.
Steady as she goes - that's my mantra. And for the most part, my husband and I have
been fortunate enough to produce steady-as-she-goes children.
Enter youngest
daughter. Enter beautiful youngest daughter turning 15. Allow her out of the house for just minutes where
boys lurk in the shadows, and then fasten your seat belt. It's going to be a bumpy ride.
She had been 15 for all of about an hour and a half when
Andy came on the scene in a big way. And
they had been friends about for about 30 minutes when they decided their
friendship was from the Lord, they were desperately in love and needed only to
wait to be old enough to marry.
As children of the modern age, their relationship fomented
around the use of social media: texting and Facebook, both much more difficult
for parents to control than their actual time together. However for this stealthy mother, it also
offered one advantage: information. And when I discovered a text from Andy describing
how he longed for the day he could hold our beautiful daughter in his skinny
little arms and whisper his love for her into her ear, these middle-aged,
paunchy, grey parents transformed into two roaring, fire-breathing
dragons.
Gone was any semblance of equilibrium or even rational
thought. Beautiful daughter was
summarily whisked away into a heavily guarded fortress and locked into the
highest tower. The moat was stocked with
hungry alligators, and experienced soldiers from all around the city were
called in for reinforcement: youth group leaders, pastors, friends, Andy's
parents. The alarm was sounded in all
the land and no resource went untapped in the protection of our precious
possession.
This was not
equilibrium. This was passion. Fierce, unrelenting, determined, iron-fisted,
implacable and merciless. It raged
through my soul, threatening to destroy the very fabric of my being.
And for this child of the status quo, for this lover of all
things moderate and familiar, for this shipside barnacle, this passion
was…uncomfortable. The situation aside,
the passion itself got my attention.
This episode awakened me to something I always knew I was
missing in my understanding of the Lord:
my Heavenly Father is passionate.
He is passionate. Could it be so?
Could the ferocity that ripped through my soul as I perceived a threat
to my beloved daughter -- could it be that that is the same passion that moved
the Father to send His Son to the cross.
Could it be that this is God's
passion for me?
I have always wondered about Romans 8:32: He
who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He
not also with Him freely give us all things?
To my way of thinking, He who did not spare
His own Son had already given us enough.
How could we be expecting even more from Him? How does it follow that He would freely give
us all things, when He has already given us so much?
This is how I sometimes felt when the
neighborhood children would come over to play and ask for more snacks, for
example. I would think to myself, "You
children have already eaten through the entire bag of potato chips that I
bought for my family, and now you want to eat all our cookies too? Go home and eat your own family's snacks!" Those children did not have this mother's
heart.
But my own children -- that is altogether different. I would never say to my daughter, "I have paid for years of ballet training for you! That is enough -- you buy your own pointe shoes!" Or to my son, "Ice hockey is the most expensive sport on the planet! If you want to play hockey, we don't want to send you to college -- these years of ice hockey have been enough." No, to them I want to give all that is good, with loads of Christmas and birthday presents besides. Because them, I love. What I want to give them is bounded only by the limitations of our checking account and by my perception of what is good for them. Other than that, I'd give them the world, even my life.
They ride the tsunami of
our love, a powerful force that makes joyous our sacrifice for them.
This collusion of ideas gives me an
entirely different view of Romans 8:32.
How is it that He who did not spare His own Son for me would also be
willing to freely give me all things?
There is no other explanation. It
must be that, just like our children ride the wave of our love for them, I ride
the wave of the Father's love for me, that powerful force that moved Him to
send Jesus in order that I could be made fit for His presence, that I could be
rescued from the damnation I deserve.
But the force of His love was not spent,
or depleted, on the cross. The cross was
the culmination of that powerful force, and that force still pours over me
every day, beyond my ability to understand.
At times I manage to have so destitute an understanding of God's love that I see Jesus' death on the cross as contractual.
When He chose to die, He made a way for everyone, whether He liked them
or not, whether He was glad they were there or not. It was like getting into the zoo on the
family pass -- one price pays for all, no matter whom. Out of His good character, He gives His
children good things. The fact that He
has so abundantly blessed me over the course of my lifetime was evidence of His
goodness -- but not necessarily evidence that He likes me. I am allowed in His presence because of what
Jesus did for everyone, the likable and the unlikable both. Nothing in that told me He feels affection for me.
But, if you'll indulge me in a slight
contortion of Matthew 7:9-11, how can I, who am evil, feel this sort of fiery
passion for my children, and think that my Heavenly Father does not feel the
same fire for His? Am I so big that I feel love, and He so small that He does
not? I do not think so.
I am no theologian. Perhaps if I were better educated I would not
have needed so long and tortured a road to have come to this
enlightenment. But as it is, my own
passion, unwelcome though it be, instructs me.
To give you the end of the story, our fair
maiden has been released from the high tower.
The alligators have been quelled for the time being and the valiant
knight, Andy, has gained tentative entrance to the castle, contingent on his
payment of particular homage to the king and queen -- to wit, he minds his courtly manners. And these two grey, paunchy folk stand at the
ready, at any hint of malfeasance on his part, to do battle again as fiery, passionate dragons!
