The Sweetness of God
Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake their ways
and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
There is no greater joy than the unsolicited affection of a child. In all my years of being dorky Mr. Caleb, there has never been a better medicine for my weary soul than an unrehearsed compliment from a seven year old or the abrasive hug of a five year old.
Children have no filter. They cling to who they trust. They know they are dependent on others to survive. While they may never grasp the energy or time their parents or teachers spend loving them, they are well aware they can do nothing on their own. And their love is so powerful because it is so precious.
Oddly enough, I’ve always felt like a large child, well into my twenties though I may be. The pull yourself up by your bootstraps mantra never rang true for this guy. Isolating and withdrawing and withholding myself from others has only ever hurt me and has never helped me.
I had just left IHOP, the great yet surprisingly expensive American establishment, after meeting with fellow struggling sojourners. The path of faith is not sexy, and any pastor who claims otherwise is likely sleeping with someone more than their spouse. I dropped the ball Christianly speaking; too much drinking, too much cussing, too much social media, too much of a thing a lot of men my age wrestle with whether they admit it or not.
The next morning was bleak, up in the sky and deep in my heart. Here I was again, never knowing how to check my impulses and be the good Christian guy I work so hard to be. The brothers at IHOP brought hope over pancakes and the enemy responded with an onslaught of shame over a rain shower.
But the apostle Chancellor, that wonderful MC from Chicago, came on Spotify. Flanking behind him was a tearjerker from the other wonderful maverick apostle, Sufjan. As the tears began to well, obscuring my drive on the I-205, the clouds massively flexed across a dormant blue streak highlighting a bursting ray of sun.
A voice whispered in my head, “I made this just for you. I’m not going anywhere. You are the disciple whom I love.”
God’s love is written about too much. Right behind it, His grace.
Strange though it may be to say that a good thing is emphasized too much, I believe it inadvertently causes that good thing to be taken for granted too much. Further, English is awful about conveying love. And I’m not talking about badly written rom coms with cringey dialogue or hook-filled pop songs that singles and takens alike sing in equal fervor.
The love of God has become too impersonal. Even saying God loves everyone makes the unique, holy elements of His love lose its appeal. It’s one of those cases where repeating an important truth without full context and distinct intentionality causes that truth to go in one ear and out the other.
When I say I love my friends, I can point to specific reasons why I love them. For example, I love Vince because he is loyal, he is intelligent, and he is unselfish. I love Lukas because he is intentional, he is understanding, and he is generous. Name any good or close friend I have, and I will tell you that I love them, why I love them, and how I love them.
Love has a who, a why, a what, a how, and a when. Love both is and does; it is a feeling and an action, a thought and a body response. If there’s anything love isn’t, it is impersonal. Love is motivated, sustained, and endured by intentionality.
The early church mothers and fathers of faith, when describing the union of the three persons of God, used the word “perichoresis.” This word describes the divine dance of the three, their autonomy and distinction from each other, and the self-giving freedom and servitude they display for each other. It’s why John refers to God as love.
Therefore, love is neither codependent nor independent. Rather, it is interdependent, and thus God is an interdependent being. The Son does not need the Spirit to be the Son, but seeks the affirmation and presence of the Spirit to be the Son. Jesus said He only ever did what He saw His Father doing. He also claimed that He and the Father are one. And so on and so on.
The concept of the trinity is a whopper of a chicken and an egg thing, and is wildly paradoxical even with the most ambiguous and nuanced of thought pattern.
Yet, here again, is proof that God’s love is intentional. His condition toward us as a loving Father cemented by the work of the Son and confirmed by the empowering presence of the Spirit.
The Father and the Son and the Spirit love you in a specific way. They have spoken things over you no one ever has, and have offered their kindness which sustains you, even when you are not aware of it.
God is a sweet God. When in our bibles we read Jesus was moved with pity or had compassion on people, the severity of it is lost in our desensitized English. The Greek word used is splagchnizomai. It is more along the lines of stomach indigestion, a stirring in your gut which nearly causes vomiting. So then, when Christ saw those in pain, in hunger, in need, His first response was deep indigestion. His compassion was so emotionally intense it stirred a bodily sensation. Hagar, the discarded and first victim of patriarchy in the Bible through poor treatment and sexual exploitation, says this of God after he says angels to tend to her; “she gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” This is the first name God ever received.
I’ll say it one more time so we are clear; God’s love is not impersonal. It is intentional, it sees, it understands. We cut God short when we operate trying to please him assuming He isn’t already pleased. Yes, He does and says and kills in the Bible, often in ways or manners our 2020 hearts and ears will never comprehend. But Jesus revealed the Father and His kingdom. He shows us what God intended from the beginning; a reality where the lowest becoming the highest, the poorest becoming the most blessed, and the most sinful of sinners are brought to redemption by a gracious, absurd, and lavish God whose generosity knows no bounds. The love of God is so sweet, in fact, that it is folly.
Darrel was really upset about something. The rest of the second graders were outside enjoying recess, but Darrel’s head was down, glued to the desk, cemented by an onslaught of tears.
“Darrel, what’s wrong?”
No response. No answer. No words. Just tears.
Darrel was emotionally disturbed according to his IEP (individualized education program). The first aha and tender moment I shared with him occurred a year earlier. He was under the table, avoiding his work, and screaming that I was mean. All my efforts to get him on task failed spectacularly. Ten minutes later, a wave of frustration within passed and a current of patient love arose. I sat under the table and colored with him. It was a few minutes before I ended what still felt like a tense silence.
“What are you coloring?”
“My dad.”
“Oh. Is your dad nice?”
“He was. But he took too many pills and now he’s gone.”
And on he colored, unshaken.
That is what pinged in my mind as his head plopped down thirteen months later on a flimsy wooden desk. His sob continued on for twenty seconds. I felt the splagchnizomai within. I heard the nudge of the perichoresis God whisper “hug this boy.”
At my work, as a man, in lieu of the potential complications and ramifications of offering a hug to a reeling child, I could get fired for such a thing.
But the gut raged in me. My heart was bleeding, a bleed I knew was coming from the God who bled for me.
I asked if he wanted a hug. Almost immediately he sprung from his desk and reached for me. But the crying didn’t stop. It persisted and intensified. This precious, wonderful, hurting image of God bearing seven year old’s body was gasping. This too lasted for twenty seconds before he stopped, left my grasp, then ran outside to play.
Now I was in a transcendent shock. A sensation defying any word. What Jesus called the kingdom of God. And I heard the Father speak, “this is my son, in whom I am well pleased.”
Any and all tender moments we share with each other has a singular source. Every moment of gut wrenching compassion we display toward our neighbor, especially a struggling neighbor, is the most like Christ we will ever be.
This is not sentimental religion or vain moralism. This is not puffed up piety or self-satisfactory virtue signaling. This is good news you can offer anyone, especially in their duress.
Providing presence to the pain of others is the first and best way we reveal to others the God who sees. So often people believe their trauma doesn’t matter. That no one cares about it, yet even if they do, that they should still just “get over it” and move on.
This isn’t how God sees their pain. This isn’t even how God wants His children to “get over” pain.
Paul says that God’s power is made perfect in human weakness. It stands to reason, then, that the way to find healing from pain is to gain access to the power of God. Therefore, the question is where does this power derive from? What is the essence of a God whose power is made manifest in the midst of the vulnerability of humanity?
We come full circle to the love of God. Or rather, love being God. But when we consider this love as intentional, as kind, as sweet, we give love back its power to change us, to change others, and to change the world. God loves you and nurtures you specifically; there are certain phrases, messages, mantras, mottos God has spoken over you and only. Dwell, then, on the ways God specifically loves you, loves others, loves everyone. And by doing so, see Him as the kind, caring, sweet being that He has always been, even from the beginning.