UNIMAGINABLE LOVE
People today are obsessed with finding the best fit for everything in life. Whether they are considering jobs, friends, church, sports, volunteering activities, or anything that requires commitment, something fits well when it allows them to enjoy existing pleasures with minimal change and inconveniences. We want options where all outcomes between the x-axis and y-axis are predictable with as little surprise as possible. Even our spiritual journey resembles spurts of occasional events like a short sprint of discipleship, a shot put to reach a given prayer goal, a single marathon of mission fieldwork before we stop and return to activities that best fit our own goals.
Instead of a singular, multi-track, and multi-dimensional journey, our Christian life appears like a disjointed series of one-dimensional mini-events infrequently interrupting our stable lives. Yet, at the end of the journey, we want to leave behind the gold standard of inscriptions from 2 Timothy 4:7: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” While the words may suggest that one has lived an impactful life for Christ, they should not be what we leave behind but how we live today, starting from our salvation.
Indeed, the life of a believer is a decathlon more than it is the sum of isolated mini-events squeezed to fit busy lives. The Apostle Paul talks repeatedly about ‘the race’ – a singular, continuous race - that is marked out for us, suggesting that ‘the race’ is not a series of discrete races with their own starting and finishing points. (Read Hebrews 12:1, Acts 20:24, 2 Timothy 4:7).
Rather, disciples of Jesus Christ are more like full-time decathletes who see God in the whole picture where everything is of concern to Him – our financial, emotional, social, and spiritual needs. Nothing is left out. We don’t need to juggle life when we let God train us to focus on the race and stay on course.
But how does one stay on course with so many competing and pressing demands in our lives? Paul, who carried a lot of credibility and authority on the subject, wrote extensively about the importance of focusing on our love for God: a love that is committed to helping us finish well in our God-given race. It is a love that never gives up no matter how hard and long it takes to reach us (Psalm 139:7-12). It is a four-dimensional love described in Ephesians 3:18 “how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ”. It is resistant to rejection and alienation because it begins with God and is not determined by our response to Him. At the same time, the steadfastness of God’s love is beyond what the human mind can grasp – comprehend and apprehend. In fact, God’s love is one that “surpasses knowledge” and is simply indescribable (Ephesians 3:19)! It takes nothing less than a lifetime to grasp the power of His love for us!
On the other hand, the world touts a quality of love that lasts as long as it fits us – giving us what we want and how much we want. Yet it is brittle, easily bruised and offended, and withdraws at the slightest perception of rejection. In addition, human love is fickle in that it is based on attraction, lasting only as long as the attraction lasts. Human love thus exists as long as we get what suits us, more a means to an end rather than an end in itself.
Contrastingly, God’s love is based on WHO HE IS: His very nature. It exists by what it gives, chiefly His Son, Jesus Christ (John 3:16). God’s love empowers us to do what we cannot do on our own and changes the way we live and love others. Thus, it is asserted in 1 John 4: 8 that “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
To run our life-long race well, we need to let the love of God grow in us, and let go of all past hurts, thinking, and habits that encumber God’s love fully operating in us. To this end, Paul emphasized, “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” (Hebrews 12:1)
Paul resolutely held that it is God’s love alone that empowers us for our God-given race, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all of creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)
As you embrace your own spiritual decathlon, reflect on the following:
This is a summary and reflection based on a virtual BIR session held on 12 February 2022.
