“He didn’t have one of you. He wanted one, so He made one.” John Dawson, International Director, Reconciliation Schools of Youth With A Mission.
He dreamed of you, this God of the universe. He wanted you in His universe that He created. He had so much love that He had poured out of His heart onto every single human being He’d already created. Yet He still had so much left over, and He ached to pour His love into a new person. He wanted another person to pour His love into, and He thought about you.
His eyes sharpened in furrowed focus as He mused in His infinite wisdom how He could make you unique, different from anyone else He had ever made. His heart sparked with delight as He finally saw the distinct combination of DNA, personality, talents, skills, aptitudes and genetic timeline that would make you different from anyone else He had ever made. He smiled as He crafted a custom future for you from this moment in eternity, through your creation, birth, life, and into eternity starting with your death on earth. His smile broke into a grin of pure delight as He saw how you were going to become His child by your choice and no longer be His simply as His creation. He planned the moments when He would call you, ever so gently, into ventures of faith and obedience. He nodded and beamed with glee as He gathered the tattered, scattered, loose ends that your life became and wove them into a rich, beautiful tapestry of testimony and hope.
He thought about where He wanted to set aside a place for you in His kingdom. The more He thought about you, the more He wanted you to exist. So He made you. And smiled. With great satisfaction, I might add. And a heart dancing, bursting, with joy and love and anticipation of when you would discover Him and claim Him as your own.
The angels gathered and watched in wonder as you were born. God immediately dispatched those angels to fight and rout evil forces of darkness for your survival and influence. He gently rolled your existence and future into the deathless prayers of His children all around you and before your time so that you would be included in their pleas for salvation and healing and blessing. And He called you.
As you grew up, first as a toddler, then as a child, He called you. He pursued you. Even then, He wanted you bad. His Spirit influenced you to wonder who He was when you looked at the stars and felt how small you were compared to them. He dropped amazing questions in your mind that you wanted a grown up to answer. Your sense of right and wrong were shaped by His righteousness that was built into a child’s development at your tender age even as sinister forces of evil fought against Him. He took the fight up for you. He influenced someone around you to try to reach you, to take you to church, to read the Bible to you, to share with you the eternal truths from that Bible, to pray over you, to represent love to you that looked just like His.
When you cried and screamed in your heart from the pain that life and other humans caused you, He called you. He wanted you bad. He reached out His nail-scarred hands to cup your face in His hands and kiss away your tears. You cursed the pain in your heart and ran away. But His eyes never left you. His heart went after you. He loved you. He knew the future He planned for you. He knew the healing and cleansing and joy that waited for the moment of your turning to Him. And He waited for you.
He loved you with an everlasting love, a love that came from an eternal heart pulsing with power and freedom and joy and glory. He loved you fiercely, wildly, foolishly, when other people had written you off as worthless. Stupid. Ignorant. Nothing to rejoice over. Something to be despised. He wanted you bad, even then. He called you. He chased you.
He wanted to take you back as His own and place you into His kingdom, a freshly delivered, adopted newborn spiritual prince or princess. He could barely but patiently wait for the second when He could transfer all the rights and privileges and inheritances of His Son, Jesus, to you. The deal had already been stamped and sealed with Jesus’ own blood. He, too, nodded and smiled and continued to pray for you, sitting to the right hand side of His Father’s heavenly throne. Some of His other servants died serving Him, whether through accident or murder or despairing suicide. When they left earth’s door, Jesus stood up to greet them. And He wanted you back with His Father, also. He knew how beautiful and strong and merciful and loving His Heavenly Father was. And He prayed for you. And smiled.
The God of the universe wanted you. And He still wants you. While you are running and hiding and crying and fearing and feeling insecure and jealous and shamed and guilty, He wants you. Bad.
While you are hiding in church and sometimes pretending and not letting Him reach into the hidden places of your heart and transform you, He wants you. When you feel conflicted between what you want and what His Word says and you become impatient or angry or frustrated, He wants you. When you have given up hope for the eleventh time this year that you could have the romance and the marriage that you want, and you look longingly at other couples romancing each other and wish you had what they have, He wants you. Bad.
God knows He is the only One Who could unabashedly love you like you don’t deserve. Only He could hug all your tears and fears away. Only He could fill your heart with a joy that confounds the world and staves off devilish intent and evil spiritual forces. Only the God Who made you could understand you, at the cellular level, at the emotional level, at the intellectual level, at the spiritual level. Seeing you all at once, only He could breathe into you the hope and joy and peace and security and glory and righteousness that you need. That I need.
You have nothing good to give Him that He didn’t give you first. There is just one little, big thing that He wants that you have, that only you could give Him. He wants your heart… your firm, heartfelt, love and commitment to Him. He asks you and He asks me to be His Valentine forever.
He eagerly asks you to be His tomorrow morning when the despised romantic holiday has worn off and all that cheap holiday candy is on sale 50% off. He asks you to be His when the blessing and good news come that could turn your heart away from seeing Him as the giver of the blessing. He asks you to stay His when He brings the right romantic partner into your life and it looks strongly like marriage. He asks you to invite Him into not just the wedding, but the new marriage He is about to form.
He asks you to be His when heartache and pain return, pain that could turn your heart away from Him as the source of healing and strength and cleansing and forgiveness and resilience. He asks you to be His when you’re anxious and uncertain and you don’t know what the next step is. He is ever so willing and gentle in calling you into those steps of faith and obedience that He planned for you way back long ago.
When He first thought of creating you, He anticipated pouring His grace and mercy and joyful strength into you. Into me. And He has been wanting to do this for a long time now. He wants you bad.
What do you do with a God like that?
Based on Genesis 1:26—31; Psalm 139:1—18; Jeremiah 1:4—10 and 31:3; Ezekiel 16:1—16; Matthew 19:3—12; John 13:1; Hebrews 7:24—27; Acts 7:54—56; Romans 8:34
