Love is a Person

August 1, 2008

So, there I was, standing in an amphitheater of orange plastic seats and lots of people, when something broke in my heart. Something broke and I was bitter in the breaking.

As many of you know, I went to the Tenth Avenue North concert in Costa Mesa on the 23rd. And it was pretty awesome. So, what was it in that concert that brought me to that bitter moment? It was a single poignant statement, cutting, piercing into the depths of my heart. Before the band played their single “Love is Here,” the lead singer Mike started talking about the song. He said, “The point of this song is that you don’t need this song…You don’t need a CD to listen to in your car or a girlfriend or a Myspace message…You need Jesus.” The point of this song is that you don’t need this song…It was the final stabbing blow in God’s attack against some of my idols because God spoke deeper than these words, spoke to the things that I run to instead of to Him, the things that I run to for comfort – a song, a person (not that it’s bad to run to people; it’s just wrong when I run to them instead of Jesus), or whatever else – and He rejected them all in that moment. He shined His light on them and showed their brittleness and told me, once and for all, These cannot and will not satisfy…And I was not happy with that declaration. God had pulled out my props and the things that I cherish to cling to and I was not happy. And I knew…I was empty. I was not satisfied and couldn’t seem to find satisfaction anywhere. I looked with skepticism on God’s claim, I will satisfy. I, even I, have been a fool.

Perhaps you don’t know the song “Love is Here.” Perhaps you have no idea why Mike made that statement. Perhaps you don’t understand my reaction to it. But even if you do know the song, you may have missed the point of it, because I know that for months I had missed it by a mile. Even that night at the concert, I still didn’t fully get it. But I left there with a couple of comforting lines of a Snow Patrol song that Tenth Ave. ended with: “Even if you cannot hear My voice/ I’ll be right beside you, dear…” I went home with tears, with frustration, with anger, and with a heavy broken heart. But I also went home with a determination to know Jesus more.

To understand what I am about to say, you need to know the lyrics to “Love is Here”…

Come to the waters
you who thirst and you'll thirst no more
Come to the Father
you who work and you'll work no more

And all you who labor in vain
and to the broken and shamed

Love is here
Love is now
Love is pouring from His hands
from His brow
Love is near, it satisfies
Streams of mercy flowing from His side
‘Cause love is here

Come to the treasure
you who search and you'll search no more
Come to the lover
you who want and you'll want no more

And all you who labor in vain
and to the broken and shamed

Love is here
Love is now
Love is pouring from His hands
from His brow
Love is near, it satisfies
Streams of mercy flowing from His side

And to the bruised and fallen
Captives bound and broken hearted
He is the lord, He is the lord
By his stripes he's paid our ransom
From his wounds we drink salvation
He is the lord, He is the lord

Love is here
Love is now
Love is pouring from His hands
from His brow
Love is near, it satisfies
Streams of mercy flowing from His side
Streams of mercy flowing from His side
‘Cause love is here
Love is here

I have been blessed, I have been encouraged, I have been comforted, I have been broken, and shattered by these words. But they have also been a source of great frustration for me. Because if love is here and love is now, if love isn’t something we’re waiting for but something we can have right now, then why have I still been unsatisfied, and have I not been filled up with or been experiencing this love? I have been very frustrated.
So where did I go wrong? What did I miss?

Sitting by a lake in the shady grass, it hit me - softly, but with so much force, the truth: Love is a person…Look again at those lyrics “Come to the waters…Come to the Father…Come to the treasure…Come to the Lover…” They’re talking about a person, they’re talking about God, they’re talking about Jesus. Love is a person, not just a feeling, not a substance, impersonal and disconnected, not just an experience, not just the warm-fuzzies or butterflies and holding hands. Love is a person because “God is love.” Let that verse sink in a minute: God…is…love…We’ve heard it before, but have we really listened to that and understood what that means?

I don’t know that we do. I do know that I have missed it. Time and time again have I missed it. And that failure to understand has had a profound impact on how I live. If love is just a feeling or an experience, then I will spend my life chasing the wind, looking for the next “fix.” If I spend my life chasing a feeling, then I will always fall short of gaining what I’m really after. And this is exactly what I have done. I have tried to find a love that would fill me and give me security. And all that that has done is to leave me empty, frustrated, and unsatisfied. But what if, this whole time, I’ve been going after the wrong thing?

If love is a person, if love is Jesus, then it’s not something that we have to strive to attain or somehow try to grasp. If love is a person, then Love comes after us. Love comes and rescues. Love is strong, Love is patient, Love is kind, Love is not self-seeking or boastful, Love endures, and He never fails. Love is here because He’ll never leave me or forsake me. “I will never divorce you,” He says…”I…will never…divorce you…”

Can you grasp the impact of that? The glorious, heart-breaking, healing magnitude of that? Never leave, never forsake…Love is a person who is right by your side, “Even if you cannot hear [His] voice,” just waiting for you to let Him in, to let go of all the empty things you’ve been running to, all your other lovers, to let Him love you. Love is near and He satisfies. Oh, let Him in.

If the love we’re chasing is only a feeling, only an experience, then it’s only a mirage, mimicking the true source of what would quench our thirst. We’ll travel across the blazing desert and find that we’re only drinking sand.

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest”

“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water”

“Open your mouth wide and I will fill it…Oh that My people would listen to Me…I would satisfy you.”

“For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water…They have come to the cisterns and found no water…” Oh, are these two evils ours? Have we forsaken our God to find ‘satisfaction’ elsewhere, ‘satisfaction’ of our own making, ‘satisfaction’ that doesn’t satisfy? I know that I have. But I can also tell you this: I have come to the waters, come to the Father, come to the treasure, come to the Lover and I have found that when I come to Him, when I cry out for Him alone, when I let Him step into the dark and lonely places, He comes in and He satisfies. HE satisfies. It’s not just that He gives something that satisfies. He Himself is that which satisfies our very souls. Everything that He is, all His goodness, love, mercy, grace, power, might, glory, majesty, holiness, wisdom, faithfulness (I could go on and on), HE satisfies. He is the center of the universe. He is everything.

All who seek Him with all their hearts will find Him, though He is not far from us. All who call upon His name will be saved. All who eat His flesh and drink His blood will be satisfied. HE is the love that we long for, that I long for. It’s not just something He gives. It’s what He is. For all of us who want, He, a person, is the love that satisfies.

So, where are you? Are you hurting? Are you lonely? Let go. Please let go, dear one. I’m not perfect. I’m still learning this. I still hurt and long. But I know, if I don’t cry out to Him, I will destroy myself grasping for something I’ll never find. Come, Lord Jesus. Come. Be my home. Be my shelter. Be my answer and my salvation. Be my joy and my delight, my breaking and my healing. Jesus, be my Love, my security. Ishi, be my everything.

“Love is here. Everything we’re longing for, whether we would say it this way or not, is really Jesus. So that song is just a call to anyone everywhere that the thing you want is here. His name is Jesus.” –Tenth Avenue North