Every time this old geezer thinks he knows it all, God surprises me with something I didn’t realize. I ran across this from the Flemish mystic John Ruusbroec. The nature of love “is both craving and generous, for it constantly wishes both to demand and to offer, to give and to take.”*

John writes favorably about love that both demands and offers. For years I’ve preached and taught about “giving” aspect of love. I’ve always ignored the “demand” part because it sounds selfish. The problem with my misguided approach is that it ignores half of what love is. Love craves, it desires, it wants. That’s not something bad. It’s something natural. It is true of human beings and of God.

We often talk about the lavish generous nature of God who gives us more than we need. But God desires as well as gives. God desires our love, desires our love for one another. Now that I think about it, I hear it in the writings around the Lord’s last supper. Jesus says to his disciples, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer (Luke 22:15). It’s in his high priestly prayer: “Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). 

What has God lovingly given you? What does God lovingly desire of you? What do you lovingly desire and lovingly give?

Read 1 John 4:16 and remember: God loves YOU (with gifts and desire)  unconditionally.

Wayne

*From “A Mirror of Eternal Blessedness.”