Thoughts.
Relationships.
Work.
The past.
The present.
The future.
Those we surround ourselves with.
The things we find most despicable about ourselves.
The longings we so desperately desire to fulfill.
Just life in general.
Not that many of these things are in any way inherently evil...
But still...
We find ourselves bound, and it is here that we often find ourselves in the most vulnerable, the most helpless, the most hopeless of predicaments.
"Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart."
~Proverbs 3:3
~Proverbs 3:3
Around my neck I wear a necklace, as do many people. And on that necklace, as on those of many of those people, there is a cross. It's nothing special, just a piece of what I think is some sort of stone cut into the shape of a cross. And alongside the cross is a ring. Nothing fancy, just a cheap band of cheap metal. Two very simple, ordinary objects, but it's not the quality or showiness of these objects I wish to draw attention to. Think about what they represent.
The cross.
"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us." 1 John 3:16
The ring.
The symbol of a promise, between friends, between a man and a woman, and for me between myself and my God, to remain faithful.
Love and faithfulness.
Now sure I took this verse a little bit more literally than most, however before I explain why I'm even sharing this and where I'm going with it I wish to raise a question or two.
What have we bound to ourselves?
Or maybe it's more like what have we bound ourselves to?
There are so many possible answers to that question.
So this necklace of mine, like I said, isn't exactly the most extravagant piece of jewelry in the world. It probably barely even qualifies as jewelry. I've dropped the thing more times than I can count, and on more than one of those occasions it slammed into the floor, the cross broke, and I was forced to scramble around looking for the pieces and then attempt to superglue it all back together. The last time I even managed to knock a decent chip off the bottom that despite my efforts I was unable to find. And how awesome an illustration this is of our hearts, of our love.
We in our humanity are often so fragile, even if we don't wish to admit it, and our hearts just that much more so. And time after time we screw up, we fail, and our hearts and the desires and abilities to love and be loved it contains shatter, and we are forced to gather back together the pieces and desperately hope we salvage what we can with superglue, maybe even a little duct tape.
But we have hope. It is the fact that the Love of our God is so drastically different than that which we so often hold in our own flimsy hearts. This is the means by which our broken hearts can be mended. His Love cannot shatter, will and simply can not be broken or compromised by any means in existence, its depth and reach unfathomable, and its implications astounding. And because of that He never ceases to be faithful.
The ring I wear around my neck, though not even a year old, has already started to turn some weird copperish color around the edges. Like I said, cheap. But that which it symbolizes...
Some may call it a promise ring, and I suppose to some extent that is what it is, but it also means just a little more. Yes, part of it's meaning is to represent the vow I have made to my wife to remain pure, but so much more than that it will show her that there is nothing on this earth more valuable to me than her, nothing I would compromise that would or could ever harm her, nothing I would not risk, would not sacrifice to be hers and hers alone, that to even be able to love her as my wife, and her alone, is one of the most precious gifts I will be given. Me, in my shifty, shaky, consistently dissatisfied and delusional humanity. If I can say that, if we can even desire a love that, how much more can we expect from a God who to the farthest stretch of the imagination and so beyond is Love itself?
How much more will a God who has not changed since before the beginning of time remain faithful to us, those He has created for the sole purpose of lavishing us with Love with the desire for us to do the same in return, a God who did risk and sacrifice everything when He made Himself a man and gave up His life to show us that Love so we can be with Him, our Love, and share in that Love for the rest of eternity.
Even when we repeatedly, consistently insist on binding ourselves to the things that break His heart.
Now that is love and faithfulness.
So I ask again, what have we bound to ourselves? What have we bound ourselves to?
A love like that? A faithfulness like that? Are we even capable of such a thing?
Are we at least willing to try to be?
What would that do to us...
If we could remember these two incredible concepts and implications they hold. If we could maintain our focus and realize that even with all these things spinning around us, the things we are so tempted to bind ourselves to because of the madness of this world, because of our loneliness, because of our desperation for peace and rest, because of our desire to be loved, the Love and faithfulness of our God is so much more awesome. That it is better than everything we ever have been and ever will be looking for. That it is everything we have been and ever will be looking for. That they are. That He is. And so much more worth it.
Worth the sacrifice, the unyielding resolve, the pain and heartache, even the moments of despair. Even being shattered. Even when our hearts break, will we refuse to let our love break with it? We are called to be faithful, to love, to bind love and faithfulness around our necks. To write them on the tablet of our hearts where it will always guard and guide us to that safety, comfort, peace, rest and Love. Because our God is so faithful.
And because our God is Love.
What will we bind ourselves to?
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