ravished

and somehow perfect love
is ravished
by a tainted one

To think that Jesus can be ravished by our love… it offends the mind. But I guess that’s what you find when we no longer harbor the need to have certain conditions met before we love someone openly.

Love—what would it look like if we removed our conditions? What would happen if our filters were no longer part of the equation and love could finally become the free gift it was intended to be? Status, productivity, relevance, affiliations, refinement, hygiene, race — what if none of this was factored in when it came down to our ability to love and love well? How would that change us? Would we be more willing to rejoice? Would our hearts burst with vision and hope? Will we finally stop looking at all that’s missing and start to see all that’s there?

Why do we subject Heaven to our own strife? Why do we prefer working for love like an earned paycheck? When will we stop filtering Heaven’s love by the standards of broken men? We are the ones with a tainted lens - not Heaven.

As long as we commit to a lifestyle of works over a lifestyle of receiving, we will never see ourselves as enough, and therefore, no one and nothing will ever truly be enough for us either. Not even God.

The only way to see clearly is to take in how Heaven receives us. Jesus is ravished by our affection. And after everything He sacrificed in order for the relational connection of Eden to be reestablished, why wouldn’t our acceptance of His love, our drinking deep of it, and our subsequent pouring it out upon His feet in joyful devotion ravish His heart? It’s everything He died for. That our love, imperfect and growing, can be our gift to Him.

Let us become radiant receivers in this life, so that the more we fill up on His wonderful, extravagant love, the more we become anything but hesitant in our love for others.