Falling In Love

I'm not a big fan of this term. When people say they fell in love, it just makes it seem like they just tipped themselves over and found themselves in Love Land. While this may hold true for some, I feel the majority of us don't function quite exactly like that. Perhaps what I would call it is persevering on the path to love. I know, I know, it doesn't quite roll off the tongue but bear with me here. The biggest lie that the media can tell us is that in the matter of 90mins, you'll meet the man/woman of your dreams, fall in love with him/her, face 1 or 2 critical moments in the relationship, and boom, the wedding bells are ringing and happily ever after. If only that was the case in our lives, then watching chick flicks would be terribly boring. Love just doesn't get handed to you on a silver-platter. You've got to want it, labor in it, and ask God to perfect it. Looking at Jacob and his 7 years of labor, well actually it was more like 14 years, that's something any man can respect and admire.

"So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her." - Gen 29:20

And I'm sure in those 14 years he spent laboring, there were tough moments, there was probably some frustration on his part, some arguments here and there. But he set his eyes on something greater than the meaningless conflicts, the small things. The sacrifice that he made to give up 14 years of his life to pursue the woman of his dreams is probably the epitome of persevering on the path to love -- only to be topped by how much our Savior has worked to show us His love. In the bible, Christ is often referred to as the Bridegroom and the people as his Bride. But imagine the love! He died for us before the vast majority of mankind was even born. We love people that we like, attracted to, compatible with, and have good conversations with. Christ didn't care about those things for his love was deeper than anything we can imagine. Instead, Christ loved us while we were ugly, broken, emotional, fallen, weak, sinners. To be able to say to someone like that that I want to marry them -- man, talk about tough. But if you think Christ didn't work to show us his love, you've got another thing coming. Not to take anything away from the cross because it is the ultimate display of love for us (1 John 3:16) but while He was with us, Christ endured shame, sorrow, verbal abuse, mental abuse, physical abuse -- you name it, he endured it. I know if I even go through just 1% of what Christ had to endure on his path to loving us, I would be jetting way in the other direction. Cya! But you know what? We've got to start somewhere. God takes whatever morsel of ourselves we're willing to bring to Him, forgives it, loves it, restores it, and perfects it.