As I listened to the family fighting, threatening each other with profane words in public without restraint, my heart broke. There was no peace because there was no love. They were affectionate, but none of them understood deep love. The wife and mother was a once beautiful lady shriveled into insecurity, defensive of her position, emotionally abused by the man who should have been her lover. He was a wounded man whose words about her revealed a deep confusion between sex and love. He was the slave of guilt which drove him to try to buy the affections of the children that had grown up distant from him and into dysfunctional lives of their own.
Sadly that family’s story is way too common in our world and I am convinced that one major reason is that many men don’t know how to be lovers. If you’re thinking I’m talking about conquests or sexual technique, refocus! Men are taught to lead, to compete, to work but many never understand the power of being a lover. A real lover connects with others emotionally, enters into their lives, expresses honest emotion, and copes with disappointment when relational strains come without descending into rage. He is discovering the Divine Romance that undergirds it all!
Men, don’t quit reading. This isn’t about being ‘soft,’ or ‘effeminate.’ This is about being tender enough to be touched and tough enough to enter into the struggle of life with hope and energy that makes a difference. Our model lover is Jesus Christ. The caricature that comes down to us in typical depictions of Him makes it hard for many men to understand that. Jesus is often portrayed as a man of indistinct masculinity. But, that is not the Jesus of the Gospels. Jesus was a man who boldly walked into conflict, stood up to bullies, and held children near his chest. He was confident enough in His own identity that He could allow a prostitute to wash His feet with her tears in public, an act that invited ridicule but which gave her nobility! He was a leader of rough fisherman, who eagerly left their families and livelihoods to follow Him. Do you really think Simon Peter would have done that for an effeminate or fearful man? Jesus gathered people wherever He went because He exuded the love of His Father, taking time to care, to get involved, to make people feel dignity once again when He touched them! And ultimately, with a most courageous love, He went to the Cross to reconcile wayward people to their Father.
Oh, oh, oh … I want to be lover like that! How desperately the world needs better lovers! Only an experience of Christ’s Love can birth love in us. "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. … We love because he first loved us." (1 John 4:19, NIV) But, He did not stop sending us love letters 2000 years ago at the Cross! He continues to love us as a good Father, giving us good gifts, freeing us from our pride and self-obsessions, blessing us with a beautiful world, whispering into our hearts of His care, if only we will listen.
Would you pray with me?
• Lord, captivate us with your beauty.
Draw us to love You beyond the service and rituals of religious obligation.
Create in us a real passion for Who You are.
When we look to You and know that Love,
Change us into lovers: bold lovers,
Engaged, concerned, giving, reconciling people to You.
__________________
Jesus, Lover of my soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly,
While the nearer waters roll,
While the tempest still is high!
Hide me O my Savior hide,
Till the storm of life is past.
Safe into the haven guide.
Oh, receive my soul at last!
Thou, O Christ, art all I want;
More than all in Thee I find.
Raise the fallen cheer the faint,
Heal the sick and lead the blind.
Just and holy is Thy name;
I am all unrighteousness.
False and full of sin I am;
Thou art full of truth and grace.
Jesus Lover Of My Soul
Wesley, Charles © Public Domain
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