You Won't Relent/Take My Life

You won't relent until You have it all
My heart is Yours

I'll set You as a seal upon my heart, as a seal upon my arm
For there is love that is as strong as death,
jealousy demanding as the grave
And many waters cannot quench this love
My heart is Yours

Come be the fire inside of me
Come be the flame upon my heart
Come be the fire inside of me
Until You and I are one

(Misty Edwards)

Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee.
Take my moments and my days let them flow in ceaseless praise.
Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of Thy love.
Take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful for Thee.

Take my voice and let me sing always only for my King.
Take my lips and let them be filled with messages from Thee.
Take my silver and my gold not a mite would I withhold.
Take my intellect and use every power as You choose.

Take my will and make it Thine; it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart it is Thine own; it shall be Thy royal throne.
Take my love, my Lord I pour at Your feet its treasure store.
Take myself and I will be ever, only all for Thee.

Here am I, all of me - take my life, it's all for Thee.

(Frances Havergal/Chris Tomlin)

Being loved is hard. (More thoughts from The Shack)

Maybe some people are going to read that title and think, "Gee, Stina, that is really lame. Being loved isn't hard! You don't have to do anything! Loving is hard, but being loved isn't!" Okay. But I might start praying for you to get loved a little more if that's really how you feel!

The thing that makes being loved - truly loved, like agape loved - so hard is that you can never do anything to earn it. You'd think that would make it easier, wouldn't you? You'd think it would be easier to be loved unconditionally than to be loved based on what you do. So why isn't it? Why is it that I feel sort of crippled somehow by unconditional love? Why is it that I so often don't believe it, or even at times run away from it?

Because of one of Satan's favorite tricks. He likes to tell us that it is more valuable to be loved for what we've done or how "great" we are than to be loved just because. Think about it: If someone - say, your mom - tells you that you did a great job at something - say, singing - do you receive that the same way as if, say, a really talented musician tells you that you're a great singer? No. Your mom would probably tell you that no matter what, but the musician? He or she will only say that if they actually think you're good. Now complimenting someone and loving someone are totally different things, but I do the same thing when it comes to love. I feel really good about myself when I think, "Wow, so-and-so really loves me because they think I'm awesome and do awesome things. I must be awesome." And my pride grows, and I'm "happy" because I feel like I've earned something great that I really deserve. We humans like to boost our egos.

But what happens when someone really loves you just, well, because they do? When someone can look at all the filth and mess in your life and say, "Wow, I really love her!"? I don't know what happens to you, but I tend to think, "Great. Where's the part about me being awesome?"

The other thing Satan does is push us to try to "earn" that kind of "love" from higher and higher "authorities." I want so-and-so to think I'm awesome, and then so-and-so-who's-even-cooler to think I'm awesome, and so on. I start "loving" cooler people because I want them to think I'm awesome, not because I genuinely desire relationship. Case in point: I don't know about you, but I think pretty highly of God. I mean, He is pretty much "the man" (and much more!). So the PINNACLE of awesomeness would be for someone sooooooo great and awesome like God to think that I'm awesome.

Problem? He already does. He did before I was born. Gee. Thanks. All that stuff I did to impress Him? Nope. Doesn't change it. All the filth in my heart, and the mistakes that I've made, and the times I've failed? Doesn't change it either (thankfully). I'm still awesome in His eyes and there's nothing I can do about it.

Here is where I have gotten love all wrong. I've made it about me, and not about the Source of love. I value love based on how much it makes me feel good about myself, rather than based on how valuable the love itself is. Several years ago when I was teaching science camp for K-3rd graders, I had this kid in my class whom I adored named Jae-Suk. He was ridiculously cute, sweet, and funny and I could go on and on about him but that's another story. I also had another kid in my class who was not so cute, not so sweet, and usually not very funny, and I had a really hard time with him. His name was Isaac. Somehow, I knew I wasn't supposed to have favorites, but Isaac just didn't come close to Jae-Suk. How could I love him anyway?

Somehow, God did a work in my heart and after awhile, I really did love him. Not because he was cute, or sweet, or funny, but I just loved him. He brightened my day just like Jae-Suk did. But it didn't make me love Jae-Suk less. In fact, I started realizing that I probably loved Jae-Suk even more than before, because it became fathomable to me that I would love Jae-Suk even if he wasn't as adorable as he was. That kind of love took a lot more effort, which I suddenly realized meant that it was worth more, not less, than the love I had for "favorites."

The love of someone who only loves the "lovable" people is nowhere near as precious and costly as the love of someone who loves unconditionally. Our world would tell us otherwise, but it is true and I've had to learn and re-learn it so many times. And this is why we know that real love - agape love - comes from God, because His love is the most precious and costly of all. He looked at a bunch of human beings whom He created out of His own pleasure, who had turned against Him and become far filthier than we realize, and said, "I love them so much, I'm going to let my Son endure more pain and torment than they can imagine so that they can be Mine again."

What does any of this have to do with The Shack? There's this really cool scene (pgs. 187-188) where God/"Papa" allows Mack to realize why he hides behind lies - in particular, why he didn't tell his wife about the note he received from God. He justified it to himself with the thought that he was protecting her, that it would've hurt her too much to hear about it, but really, he was protecting himself from his own fear of emotions. Papa allows him to realize that if he hadn't lied to her, she might have been there with him at that moment. The inference there is that his lie kept her away from the blessings he received, but I also see that he kept himself away from the blessing of having her by his side when he returned to such a painful place. She might've gone with him to that dark and lonely place if he had let her.

On Sunday, my pastor was preaching about how God uses our experiences to reach others, and he mentioned some things he had struggled with and how he had been able to bless and be blessed by others who had shared similar struggles. One struggle he happened to mention was - guess what - something I struggled with too! And I had purposely refused to tell him about it for a lot of dumb, fake reasons. I realized that if I had told him, maybe he would've been able to help me through it! (I'm not trying to say you have to tell your pastor everything. But my pastor is more than just my pastor. I am close enough to him and his wife that telling them was more of a default than not telling them.)

That night at small group, his wife and I were talking about The Shack, especially about that scene and how we often project onto others who we think they are or how they are going to respond in a way that we know isn't true. In a later conversation she happened to mention that a kid I went to high school with lost his mom awhile ago, and how bad she felt because she didn't even hear about it until much later and couldn't have done anything. I realized that maybe she would've wanted to "do something" for me too. I mean, my mom didn't die or anything, but there have definitely been times I've chosen to hold back when I otherwise wouldn't because... I thought they would judge me? I thought they wouldn't care? Because I was afraid of rejection? Because I was afraid of looking weak? Afraid of getting too close?

I decided I had to do something about this because I do this to them so much that I could barely discern what was actually true anymore. So we got together and talked, and it was so freeing and healing, just like it was for Mack in the book. And the greatest thing I think I took away from it is that I do not have to impress them, they love me just as I am. They will keep loving me no matter what I do. That is really really cool. It's definitely not normal by human standards.

We do not have a God who wants us to impress Him. We have a God who loves us already and wants the best for us. He pushes us to do great things because doing great things is really really cool and awesome for all who are involved. He is not impressed when I do something good; He is happy for me that I got to partake in His joy by living the way He meant for me to live. And when I screw up? He's right there too, loving me through the messes I make and helping me clean them up. That love is so much more beautiful, valuable, powerful and precious than the "love" that is based on myself and my need to feel "awesome." All I have to do is receive it!