Beyond Reason
Who can understand why the heart chooses to love? Physical beauty, strength, charm, social standing, or wealth? For every why, there is an equal and opposite why not. Beauty fades, strength fails, wealth is unreliable. Love is difficult to explain.
If I love based on merit or worth, have I really loved at all?
“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
The concept of true love defies reasonable explanation. Its unconditional nature baffles, time and time again. Consider the manner in which God delivered His greatest gift, His son Jesus, to mankind. He chose an unmarried teenager as Jesus’ mother and a carpenter as His father. He gave a group of shepherds, busy tending their flock, the honor of being the first to hear that the Christ had been born.
Shouldn’t the long-awaited Messiah have been born in a palace, entrusted to nobility, announced to leaders and nations? Right from the start, God demonstrated how far love was willing to reach. As He lived out His life on earth, Jesus would continue to go lower and reach further, eventually dying between two thieves on a cross.
The stories of Jesus’ time on earth tell over and over again of an illogical love. Dining in the home of a tax collector, counseling a Samaritan woman, touching lepers. It’s almost as if love is determined to go after the least likely, the most unexpected. Hard to fathom isn’t it?
“See what great love the Father has lavished on us.”
Perhaps, love is its own reason, the whys and why nots not meant to be understood. What I do know is this: I’m so glad love wasn’t reserved for the deserving. Instead, God threw His arms open wide and lavished it on us all.
This Christmas, may you experience the free unconditional, unmerited gift of God’s love.
Merry Christmas, friends.