You Were Expecting?

I would listen to Etta James sing the tax code. Both hope and pain weep through even an ecstatic lyric.

At last

My love has come along

My lonely days are over

And life is like a song

Oh yeah yeah, at last

The skies above are blue

My heart was wrapped up in clover

The night I looked at you

And I found a dream that I could speak to

A dream that I can call my own

I found a thrill to press my cheek to

A thrill that I have never known

Oh yeah yeah, and you smile, you smile

Oh, and then the spell was cast

And here we are in Heaven

For you are mine at last

Heartstrings are touched by that verse.  Not only because it’s Etta “my man, I love that man even though he’s got three other women and he beats me but he’s mine” James.  Romance is essential. What? You were expecting an admonition to grow beyond it?

We are drawn to someone that will take us beyond ourselves. Some believe we are built incomplete so that we will search for a match. Perhaps creations brokenness and our flawed development have complicated that, because attraction often takes the search off track. Some seek the love of one like the one that hurt them before. Others seek safety at the cost of loneliness.  And the list goes on.

We want to belong, to be adored by a one-and-only, to have one to share the heights and depths. One who sharpens us like iron when sparks fly.  Who thinks we are funny. A faithful friend who will wound privately and defend fervently. Someone to watch over…

All of these romantic aspirations are noble & attainable. The context in which we learn to unconditionally love is the place they grow. But the spell of infatuation that Etta sings of requires more than a human can deliver. When we look for all our needs to be met by that one person we are bound for disappointment. It’s not about the willingness or depth of the person, its just that we are not meant to complete one another. We look to another human to complete us; and life is like a song. But it turns out to be a country song.

We are drawn to someone that will take us beyond ourselves.  We are drawn to completion. That’s God’s desire and matchless ability. He is the sole supplier of unconditional acceptance.

God calls people to seek him. Along the way we mistake others; be they people, or quests, to fill his role. And when they accept worship they temporarily take his place. And when they fail we blame them for misleading us.  Paul knew this to be true when a crowd responded to miraculous gifts by mistaking he and Barnabas for Olympian gods. His response is a model for our relationships; “Men why are you doing these things? We are also men, of like nature with you, and we bring good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God..”(Acts14:15)

We long for completion; it is a part of our being. Too often we unwittingly burden our human relationships with the task; and they must fail. When we seek completion in our relationship with God then the human relationship is unburdened. We are free to grow our love for God and each other without competing affections.

I have a romantic notion of an elderly couple walking hand in hand to meet their maker and hearing him say, “Here we are in Heaven and you are mine at last”.