Beyond Love

"We want to delude ourselves that of the problem of our emptiness, love is at the root. I want to say to you, it isn't. Love is only the branches. The root goes beyond love. A naked kind of isolation. An isolated me that does not meet and mingle and never can. It is true what I say. There is a beyond in me which goes further than love, beyond the scope of the stars. Just as some stars are beyond the scope of our vision, so our own search goes beyond the scope of love. At least, I think that it is at the root, going beyond love itself."
D.H. Lawrence

I'm so forgetful so I write reminders on my hand sometimes. After reading a chapter in Ravi Zacharias' book, Cries of the Heart, I wrote "beyond love" on my hand to remind me that worshipping God is what my heart truly longs for and love is something that is brought to life from within worship and then overflows out of worship. It's so easy in our culture to be caught up falling in love with love. There's so many movies, books, magazines and tv shows that, as Ravi Zacharias puts it, are "planting in young minds cravings that no human experience could match or placate." And so I've been realizing ways I've been affected by this and have been asking God to plant within me new cravings that are from Him. There's something beyond love that my heart needs and God has started showing me things.

Like this morning, when I went outside, I was so overwhelmed. The air was fresh, the wind brisk and chilly, the sky clear. It was one of those mornings where you expect to have a little sniffle and you want to drink something warm. To the north, the mountainous coastline of Spain rose above the water. No, there wasn't any rain since the rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain...
The mountains were so quiet and still though. It was as if they knew that by humbly being who they are it would be enough to beckon me to them. To the east, the sun had risen and mixed with clouds just over the horizon, its' light making a path of glistening blue and white. All this beauty. All of it beckoning me. I felt like the bow of a violin was playing lightly over the strings of my heart, making me want to sing.

It made me think how there really is something beyond love in all this. I mean, yes, there is so much love here but there's also music and grandness and thankfulness and a longing to give myself wholly to the one who created me. Love is so amazing but it's nothing when it's separated from God. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. Love comes to life more gloriously than we could ever imagine when it's done out of worship. Only it doesn't always look or feel so glorious. Jesus showed the greatest love by giving his life for his disciples and the whole world but it didn't really look like love to them or anyone else who saw Him. It probably looked really foolish or confusing at the time. Jesus was going beyond love though. He chose to worship His Father above everything, laying down his life and saying not my will, but your will. And his worship allowed his love to bring life to so many others for eternity.

"There is a beyond in me that goes further than love, beyond the scope of the stars."

I smile because I know what is beyond the stars. I know Him and am found in Him. I have nothing but He breathes His breath into me, giving me a new heart and bringing me life as I worship Him.