Crazy Love

Photo by: Julie Blair  www.julieblairphotography.com

Van Morrison sang a song called Crazy Love.  

 “I can hear you’re heart beat from 1000 miles.  Yea, the heaven’s open every time she smiles.”

No matter who you are. No matter where you came from. Everyone desires to love and be loved. Our English language does not have a variety of words to describe the different kinds of love we feel. We use the word love to describe how much we like ice cream or our pet, we love our mother and our friend. We love the newest styles and our old comfy slippers. But, the kind of love I am talking about is the longing for deep, intimate, authentic, radical, crazy love.

Being a Christian isn’t about a list of do’s and don’ts. It is about falling in love with God. You may have heard the name God your entire life. Have you really stopped to think about who this amazing God really is? Have you ever considered the Awe factor of God? Just stop and think about this amazing reality.

Not only Biblical authors, but also Greek philosophers at the time of Plato used different words for the English word love.  Agape is one of the deepest kinds of love. It is a love that represents a divine love, unconditional, self-sacrificing, active and thoughtful love. The kind of love that is between two people who have totally committed to each other. This kind of love puts the other ahead of personal satisfaction.

One of my favorite books is by Francis Chan called, Crazy Love. Francis is one of those people that makes you want to be a better person and wanting more of Jesus. He believes that God is God. After I began to read his book, I began to repeat Matt.22:37-40 every day and every night.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your 

soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 

“Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Love is hard work. Believing in God is one thing. Loving God is quite another. Really loving Him and feeling His love in return. When we live each day, I think we all feel it when we allow ourselves to slow down, take pause and wonder, where is the love? We live in a hard world and feeling real love may even be something very strange to us, to me. Even in the churches, you rarely hear about the most loving person is... Our churches do not do love well. They just don’t.

God loved me enough to die for me. I need to let that sink in. Most of the time my view of God is narrow and small and easy to understand. I need to allow him to explode in my understanding before I can really feel the power of his love. The more I love him and the more I feel his love, the more alive I feel. I want more of that crazy love. American Christianity is disappointing in so many ways. I know. I have been going to church regularly or irregularly for 45 years. But, I, like Francis Chan, believe in God and not in organized religion. But, I refuse to stay the same. I want to be uncomfortable with change and changing the way I live. I want to love with the very love of God.