Special Delivery

Go after a life of love as if your life depended on it—because it does. 1 Cor. 14:1, The Message

At times, we catch ourselves watching, waiting, and wondering:

Where is that "special delivery" of love, the one we wanted or expected?

That bouquet of love, the card of loving sentiment, the lovely tokens as reminders?

We confess. We'd like a steady subscription:

Sweet and loveable words of validation or comfort;

Tender hugs of loving support from whom we want, when we want; and

Lovely gestures or surprises to remind us that we're loved.

It's as though we seek love like our life depended on it.

Go after a life of love as if your life depended on it—because it does. 1 Cor. 14:1, The Message

And there is a desperation to experience being Loved. Loveable. Lovely.

Almost as though we're made that way.

And the desperation is real:

We are bankrupt without love. 1 Cor 13, The Message

We can't exist without Love.

We don't exist without Love.

But seeking special deliveries from human hands and human hearts

may often turn up insufficient, late, or empty.

And when a special delivery doesn't arrive as per our specifications, or at all,

it's tempting to stamp our own foreheads in bold ink:

Unlovable?! Unlovely?! Unloved?!

It may drive desperate conclusions leading to a disordered cycle by a deceptive claim

that "if we just..." we can make ourselves more...

Loved.

Loveable.

Lovely.

And on the recent day of the cross-section of Ash Wednesday and Valentines Day,

maybe we dared to ask ourselves:

What is love, actually?

What kind of love is lasting and true, crossing into death and beyond death and ashes?

And how is it possible to receive "a crown of beauty instead of ashes for those who grieve?" - Isaiah 61:3

Because we grieve false definitions of love.

We need delivery...

From the kind of love that is a game on reality TV;

From the kind of lovely that exists within a certain appearance or shape;

From the kind of loving that comes with cost or control or co-dependency;

From the kind of love that requires checklists or pre-conditions.

You are my help and my deliverer; O my God, do not delay. -Psalm 40:17

Please...deliver us, O God. Deliver us from fear.

Fear catches hold of thoughts and behaviors.

Fear fakes "improving" us through a punitive cycle.

Fear perpetuates the threat that "unless we change," the special delivery (love) will never come.

It takes something powerful to un-clutch this fear,

to un-clutter our minds,

to un-break our hearts.

Only a force of nature could deliver us from this fear.

He delivered me from all my fears.  Psalm 34:4

We need a Perfect Love (Love-er) to cast out the fear of never experiencing a love like this.

Only a special delivery of Perfect Love.

Perfect (complete, full-grown) love drives out fear. *

(Did someone say "perfect?")

...the one who is afraid [of God’s judgment] is not (yet) perfected in love

[(as they have) not grown into a sufficient understanding of God’s love].

1 John 4:18, The Amplified Bible *

Maybe it's just us.

Maybe love takes too long to understand.

Maybe love is just too tall an order for ourselves and others, because after all:

Love never gives up.

Love cares more for others than for self.

Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.

Love doesn’t strut,

Doesn’t have a swelled head,

Doesn’t force itself on others,

Isn’t always “me first,”

Doesn’t fly off the handle,

Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,

Doesn’t revel when others grovel,

Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,

Puts up with anything,

Trusts God always,

Always looks for the best,

Never looks back,

But keeps going to the end. 1 Cor 13, The Message.

Who could be that worthy or lovely?

Special delivery for us:

Ordinary people without qualifications (are and have always been) invited into divine fellowship. **

Who could be that loving?

Special delivery for us: not a to-do list, but a Good-News list:

 ...for it is Love that does these things, not us, and that what we are to do is to pursue love. (1 Cor 14:1).

As we "catch" Love, we find that these things are after all being done by us...as the result of dwelling in love.**

Special delivery:

from a Love who wrote Love into us,

the Author and Originator -

the essence, epitome and example of Love.

In... Love, we achieve living union with, have fully entered into, the kingdom of the heavens. We have sought and found the reigning of God...and out of that union, we discover love as a life-power that has the marvelous, many-sided expression spelled out by Paul in 1 Cor. 13."

-The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard. **

We are created by Love, made to Love, and made to rely on Love.

Special delivery:

Thankfully, love is based on the choice of the one who loves, not the "worthiness" of one loved.

Love is a choice.

And God chooses You to be loved.

And God chooses You to love.

Special delivery:

For you, LORD, have delivered me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before the LORD in the land of the living. - Psalm 116:8-9 NIV

This delivery is always available, right on time, everlasting, and has no expiration date.

As a result of Love’s inpouring, our out-pouring.

As a result of knowing Love, being Love.

As a result of seeking Love, finding and becoming Love.

Special delivery, with a promise attached:

Eventually, we will be Returned to Sender.