God

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength." (Deuteronomy 6:5)

Many years ago when I was involved in what I now feel was a spiritually abusive church, I attended one meeting in a room that was full of young women in their 20s. I don't remember exactly what the occasion was, but I remember one woman had recently gotten married, and I think the rest of us were still single, so one of us single women asked the recently married woman a very important question. I don't remember exactly what her words were, but she basically asked, "How do you separate your love for your husband from your love of God?" She was basically asking how this recently married woman could love her husband when she already loved God. We were in a charismatic, very weird church that put very few boundaries on anything. I won't go into details here, but suffice it to say that I was relating to God in a very weird, sometimes rated-R kind of way. So, we young women in our 20s were wondering, in a sense, how the heck it would be OK to have the hots for a guy without feeling like we were cheating on God. So, in a very gracious, grownup way, the recently married woman explained to us confused women in our 20s that God gives you a love for your husband that's different than the love He wants us to have for Him.

In the verse from Deuteronomy that I quoted above, God explains that He wants us to love Him with all our heart, soul, and strength. Technically, it doesn't say to love the Lord our Father with all our heart, soul, and strength. It doesn't say to love the Lord our Friend with all our heart, soul, and strength. And it doesn't say to love the Lord our Husband with all our heart, soul, and strength. It says to love the Lord our GOD. Currently, I'm learning that even though technically, God is Father, Friend, Husband, Counselor, Teacher, Helper, Redeemer, Restorer, Provider, Healer, Warrior, Peacemaker, Comforter, Creator, Devil-Destroyer, Heartmender, etc., He wants to be more than just all that. He wants to be God.

"For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is His name; and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel; He is called the God of the whole earth." (Isaiah 54:5)

"A man who has friends must himself be friendly, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." (Proverbs 18:24)

"Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you." (Isaiah 49:15)

"A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy habitation." (Psalm 68:5)

God is a rated-G Husband, yes, but He wants to be more than just a lovesick Guy who writes loveletters and sings love songs. He wants to be God. God is the closest Friend that any human being could ever have, yes, but He wants to be more than just a faithful Friend who tells compelling stories and sometimes leaves early so He can go to work the next morning and other times stays with you for hours because He wants to keep hanging around you. He wants to be God. God is the most nurturing Mother, because from what I understand, He's technically genderless, but He wants to be more than just a strong shoulder to cry on or a gentle-yet-firm voice who will tell you that He wants to fix your boo-boos one minute but insists that you clean your room the next minute or who charges at your attackers like a crazed bear with sharply accurate fangs. He wants to be God. God is the most loving Father, yes, but He wants to be more than just the Best Advice-Giver in the Universe or the Most Fragrant Bosom in existence or the Most Entertaining Storyteller Lap ever known or the Wisest Being in all existence. He wants to be God.

God is holy. God is pure. God is big. God is good. God is powerful. God is merciful. God is kind. God is gentle. God is faithful. He is the only Life Source. He is the Most Worthy Being in the Universe. He Himself created the Universe. He is a consuming fire. He deserves for us to drop to our knees and/or fall on our faces anytime He's around. He deserves for us to drop everything and focus all of our attention on Him completely. No one is more beautiful than He is. No one is more perfect than He is. No one is more intoxicatingly enrapturing than He is. He wants to be worshiped. He wants to be prayed to. He wants to be feared. (I guess you could say "respected" instead of feared, but if He created hell and has the power to send beings there, maybe "feared" is the most accurate verb to use after all.)

Yes, God is my Husband whom I gaze upon like a lovesick puppydog, who I dream about writing power ballads to, and who makes me giggle like a schoolgirl. Yes, God is my Friend who doesn't have a problem hanging out with me whenever, wherever, and who listens to my incessant chitchatting, and who has fun making me laugh. Yes, God is my Mama who calms me down when I wail in pain, who has stored gallons of my tears in His bottle collection, who has roared like the Lion that He is to scare my enemies away, and who doesn't have a problem spanking me. Yes, God is my Father who tucks me in at night and tells me stories and sings me songs and gives me nicknames and speaks identity and makes everything better and takes care of me and makes me cry just thinking about Him. But He wants to be more than just that.

He wants to be God. I think that means that regardless of where I am and what I need, He wants to be in charge. He wants my best. He wants my worst. He wants all my heart, all my soul, all my strength, all my mind, all my being. If I have a job, He wants to help me do it. If I have a hobby, He wants to play along with me. If I have entertainment, He wants to hang out with me, too. If I have an errand to run, He wants to run it with me. If I have a decision to make, He wants to be in the middle of it. If I have a catastrophe, He wants to walk me through it. If I have fun, He wants to enjoy it with me. He wants it all.

He wants to be the first Person I interact with in the morning and the last Person I interact with at night. He wants to be near, over, beside, between, among, hovering, soaring, resting, triumphing, weeping, shouting, quiet, here, there, then, now, later, forever, always. He wants to be my reason for existing. He wants to be God.

I hope that doesn't sound weird. He fixes weird. He doesn't want to be a category. He wants to permeate the categories. He wants to be in charge of the categories.

He wants to be Husband, Friend, Mother, Father, whether I already have a husband, friend, mother, or father or not. He wants to be in the center of all those relationships. He wants to be those relationships to me. He wants to be the Ultimate Relationship that I will ever or could ever have. He wants to be it. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. He is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He is God.