It’s that time again…time for another crappy break-up excuse that we also use on God, foolishly thinking we can break up with the God of the Universe. Without further ado, the excuse of the week:
Break up excuse: You have all the qualities I’m looking for in a future spouse…you’re just not my future spouse.
Why it sucks in human relationships: The first time I heard this used on a friend of mine I thought the guy was crazy. Then, a few years later, someone told this very line to me. I was quite honestly dumb-founded. If I have all of the qualities you are looking for in a wife, then why the heck am I not your future wife? This excuse sucks in human relationships because quite honestly it fails to make any sense to a sane person. Furthermore, it has an unspoken undercurrect that whispers “you still aren’t enough.”
Why it sucks when using it with God: We are afraid to think of God as “spouse” (especially for women) because we fear that means a religious vocation and therefore giving up our dreams of a big wedding, a life together, kids, a family, a white picket fence, etc. Plus, when we use this excuse with God we are filling ourselves with pride in some sense by essentially telling God, “You have everything I’m looking for…but in some way, shape, or form You aren’t good enough.” HA. God’s not good enough? Good luck finding anything better.
Why this excuse doesn’t work on God: We are already married to Him. He is the first and truest lover of our hearts, and perhaps we haven’t been called to become a nun, a sister, a priest or a brother, but our hearts should always be married to Him first. You can’t un-marry God, just like you can’t break up with Him. There is a line in “Eternal” by Sanctus Real that goes like this, “in this marriage of our hearts, there is no death do us part, for You are eternal, and I am eternally Yours.” If death can’t part our hearts from God, then certainly some silly break up excuse can’t part them either. After all, He is eternal, and we are eternally His, nothing could ever change that reality, that Truth.
How to move on: In order to move on, you have to come to some acceptance of the fact that your heart is married, is linked eternally with the God who created it. A few years ago I was on a retreat when I realized just how beautifully we are linked to Christ. You see, in the days when Christ walked the earth, when a man wanted to propose to a woman, he didn’t buy her a ring and get down on one knee. Instead, he offered her a cup of wine. This wine was a sign or a symbol of his life, of his blood. If she accepted, she took the cup from him, drank the wine, drank his very life into hers and returned the cup to him. Then, he too would drink from the cup which now symbolized her life and her blood. Sound at all familiar? Communion. Every single time we receive communion Christ is proposing to us, to each of us individually. He already loves you and no matter where you’ve been, He is always waiting to propose to you again, and again, and again…eternally.
Lord, open our hearts to the love that You desire to wash us clean with. Help us to see, know and believe that our hearts are married to You, their maker, and that nothing can ever separate our hearts from Yours. AMEN.
