Revisiting “God’s metaphors are life’s instructions”… roommates and I use metaphors often to understand bits of God, and life, and love. So here I go again.
This morning I was drinking my coffee (big shock, I know) and Loca came snorting up. She followed me around the kitchen while I made my lunch and refilled my mug. She was watching my every move – and awkwardly stopping in the middle of my path so I had to step over her – but was staying just out of reach. She’s transparent though, and I could tell by the look in her oversized eyes that she wanted to be with me though she didn’t know how to go about it. So I scooped her up and held her close. It was a tender moment really…even though she has these deep-chested snooooorts and kind of smells bad, there’s something endearing about the little gremlin. Not one minute passed before she started wriggling and resisting being in my arms, so I let her down. Turns out her angst and desire to get away from me was driven by her frenzied compulsion to search for crumbs on the floor. I had almost given her the remainder of my breakfast, but she preferred to stick her nose to the ground and seek substance herself.
But, like Loca, humans are all a bunch of snorts too. There are many directions I could take this. For me, I’ll study scripture and pray – a following God around the kitchen of sorts, as He’s whippin’ up something good that I know I want/need – but often resist getting close enough to receive the intimacy of truly being held and letting him freely give, the intimacy that will send a powerful pulse through my heart. Made me think of this classic C.S. Lewis quote: “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
Sometimes it’s uncomfortable to be so generously lavished with love because the love we dish out is so weak, conditional, & flimsy in comparison, so His love is difficult to comprehend – wait, you love me this much? Really? But what it boils down to is YES – He’s saying “YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU!” You and your awkward snorting, you and your smell (in the KJV, Jesus describes dead Lazareth as “he stinketh” in John 11:39 – but apart from God’s atonement we STINKETH like Loca). Good news! He still loooooves us.
When I was 3-4 I was obsessed with Wizard of Oz. I saw figurines in a store window and basically chanted “Dorfy (Dorothy), Sca-co (Scarecrow), Tinman, Wion (Lion)” over and over again for days on end. Mom finally bought them for me for Christmas. Oh happy day. Then it was cats. Six years old and my cat had kittens and I am catwoman for Halloween and own 20 cat stuffed animals. For me, I can’t just have a taste. If I like something, I loooove it (“I’ve always been a lover since before I drew a breath, somethings I loved easy, others I loved to death” – Derek Webb).
So what’s a person like me to do? There’s a prayer that resonates with me – Give me one magnificent obsession. GREAT prayer for a gal like me. I am far too easily pleased, I know I’m such a snortface, Lord, so give me one magnificent obsession – Your best, Yourself.
Give me one pure and holy passion
Give me one magnificent obsession
Give me one glorious ambition for my life
To know and follow hard after You
To know and follow hard after you
To grow as your disciple in your truth
This world is empty, pale, and poor
Compared to knowing you, my Lord
Lead me on and I will run after you
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