There I was, having finished my schooling in Physical Therapy, at a five-week clinical … I heard a soft voice, turned and saw Jana, and the music started to play! Oh, the Romance of it all … passing one another notes during clinical meetings like elementary kids … talking late into the night … secretly gazing at each other during the day … I was smitten.
We got married while I was planting a church. Not a good idea. Something happened. Slowly, the fire of romance began to cool, not because I no longer loved Jana...but because I was being seduced. There was another love, something that was pulling me away from the woman I gave my heart to. Without realizing it, slowly, bit by bit over time, the Mistress of Ministry began to steal my heart away from my most important human relationship on this earth!
Just two years into our marriage, she asked me to rate our marriage on a scale of 1 to 10. I rated it as a 7. She rated it as a 3. What had caused me to be initially smitten by my soul mate had slowly faded, and now, we were merely roommates.
Lane change.
Let’s shift from marital romance to divine romance. Listen to the words of Jesus as he speaks to the church at Ephesus.
“I have this against you, that you have left your first love.” Rev. 2:4
I wonder what would happen if we could only believe what Scripture says about the heart of God. If only we believed that he regards our commitment to God as a real relationship, a covenant of love, a marriage. We are, after all, referred to as the bride of Christ.
Have you never been to a wedding? Have you never seen the groom weep as his soon-to-bride appears in the back of the church and slowly begins her walk to the one who is smitten with her.
Have you never seen the first dance?
The New Testament writers weren’t being reckless when they gave us the groom and bride metaphor. Maybe it made some people feel uncomfortable, maybe others thought, You’re going too far.
No, they were being Biblical. Isaiah 62:5 says, “… as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.”
As for me, I’m choosing to embrace this. I’m choosing to believe God is as big, as passionate, as delighting as Scripture says.
A God capable of infinite delight has set his delight upon his people. I invite you to not let your faith become ritual, legalism, or superficial. I invite you to ...
settle
for nothing less
than divine romance.