| | I was watching Almost Famous the other night. Not that that would surprise any of you, but what I mean to say is...I think you can tell when a story is rich and actually has something to say when you can learn something new from it every time you encounter it. I'd always thought I was William Miller because he's this uncool, endearing writer, but for the first time, I think I might actually be Penny Lane. When Penny barely exhales in tears, "Why doesn't he love me?", I couldn't help but resonate with how we believe our home, our sense of completion and belonging, ought to come from the one(s) we choose to love. Yet, it's funny how life works...this battle to make those we love to love us back, only to miss the fact that we are actually loved by those to whom we gave the least consideration. I know none of you can relate, but I know at least for me, I go through this a lot with God - this whole...wanting to make the world love you, only to find that it uses you to further love itself, and then when God says He loves you, you want to dismiss that, because that feels lame and unoriginal since He loves everyone anyway...
I've been thinking a lot about this relationship I'm part of, and the more I think about it, the more it's becoming clear to me that I've been drawn to two out of His three facets - the Counselor and the Friend who is great with people / who I want to be just like. A lot of the things we talk about are things like how we feel about ourselves, each other, the world, and why we are the way we are. These have always been good sessions, and the revelations are definitely...revelatory, that I'm not questioning. But, I wonder if I've been missing the bigger picture, that maybe He's got more to say to me than just stuff about me and my life...and that maybe this relationship has no other objective...than the very relationship itself.
I realize this sounds ludicrous, but I guess the price I've paid for over-thinking this is this drowning question of what defines a relationship - proximity? consistency? common interest? mutual initiative? vulnerability? See, it's just that...lately, that Third Facet known as Father has been raising His hand in the back corner of my mind. He's been trying to remind me about our relational dynamic, calling Himself "shepherd" and calling me "His own...treasured possession." When He puts it that way, it gets me thinking that using these "therapy sessions with my Counselor/Friend" just to ask my Penny Lane type questions skews the opportunity to cultivate a true relationship.
As someone who's been trying to learn to find flaws within logical reasoning [if you understood what I was referring to, I'm sorry], I came to realize that I've had flawed reasoning about all this for some time. I'd always resented God, because I felt that if He could loves others, too, then He must love me less. Just because He can love more than one person does not mean His love for me is lessened. I may not know much, but maybe a relationship can start by trusting that.
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| | Posted 6/7/2009 3:04 PM - 4 Views
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