Love.

What a small word for such a big concept.

Like I said in the previous post, God has been teaching me so much about love since I've been here in Chicago. In an environment like Summer Project, you are constantly hearing about "the amazingness of God's unfailing love", and "how much He loves us", which are things I've always believed but never took too seriously. Coming into project I started questioning exactly how that applied to me. I felt God's love in how much He'd blessed me, though my great friends and family, and in random circumstantial things, but until coming here I never knew you could think of God like a lover. One of my roommates mentioned that the first night we were here, and it struck me that I kind of had a buddy-buddy sort of relationship with God. How was it possible to feel that love from God and love him back? I talked to Him most every day and I lived life with Him to an extent, but I wasn't walking in the Spirit (which I'll talk more about in a different post) and my relationship with Him wasn't very deep. I realized through talking to a few people that I also didn't quite understand thinking of God as my Father. Like I said, He has been my best friend... but how could I get to the point where I had this intimate relationship with Him? Falling in love with God (thinking of Him as a lover) is still a concept that is hard for me to understand, but God is showing me a lot about how to think of Him like a Father.

I have been reading and studying several things while I've been here. As a project we have been going through Galatians, which is a letter from Paul to the church in Galatia. When Paul writes, he infuses so much of the gospel into what he is saying, so I've been learning and growing a lot through that.

I'm also reading the book Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. I would recommend this book to anyone!! It's not a super intellectual read but it is well written and Rivers' imagery is very powerful. It's fiction but based on the book of Hosea. If you don't know the book of Hosea (I don't really), it's basically about a man who is told by God to marry a prostitute. The prostitute runs away from him again and again, falling back into prostitution, but Hosea keeps going back to get her. It is supposed to be a picture of God's love for us, and it's really powerful. I haven't read the actual book in the bible yet but I've been told it makes more sense if you read it after Redeeming Love.

The third thing I've been going through is the Thirsty devotional. It's a devotional that they gave us the first week of project, and it's all about being filled with and walking in the Holy Spirit.

In lots of the Thirsty devotional there are parts where it has you go back to the old testament to read some of God's promises and things like that. One day during my quiet time it just hit me. The whole message of the bible is love! From the beginning when God made promises to Abraham about blessing his people and other covenants that took place, God was expressing His love for us. And then there were the Israelites (part of Abraham's lineage), who turned away from God time and time again... but He still delivered them and forgave them each time. The whole book of Judges is all about that... about how God sends a judge over and over to deliver the Israelites out of the mess they've gotten themselves into. And then later, in an incomparable act of love, He sent His very own son to die in our place. Someone had to die because we're not adequate.. we can't follow the rules set forth in the bible. So God stepped forward and took care of His people. AGAIN. And once and for all... because once we are part of His kingdom, we can't be unsaved. It's all an amazing picture of love... I don't know how I didn't see it before. It's like it was a message written across the sky but in letters too big for me to see.

The other amazing thing is that love totally is the answer to a lot of questions in this world. I was reading one of my old journal entries where I had said something about "it's like I want love to be the be-all, end-all of this world, but I know it's not." Making this realization about the message of the bible has shown me that I was entirely wrong. Love IS the be-all, end-all... God's amazing love is all we can cling to! If you think about it, the whole WORLD is obsessed with love. It's in thousands of songs, books, art, and other human expressions. It's something everyone wants. But there is a reason for that. That's not an ungodly desire... the hunger for love is there in order to point us to Christ. He's the only one who can really fulfill the need we have for love.

I came into that quiet time feeling inadequate and awful.. I felt like the prostitute in the book I was reading or like the Israelites. I constantly get distracted by people and relationships, and I am always making other things more important than God. But suddenly when I put together all the things I'd been reading and learning, it made sense. The picture of the Israelites failing in the bible is representative of us. The story is in the bible for a reason. God's love for those Israelites is the same as the love He has for us. I don't have to be perfect, and that's the miracle. Even though I keep turning from God, He still loves me. I'm still His child, a princess, an heir to His kingdom. I'm VALUED. And I don't deserve it.
It's overwhelming.

There's more that I've been learning about love. There are lots of people at my job that I don't really even want to get to know, let alone love. But I'm learning all of this stuff about how God loves me with this unconditional, I-cant-even-mess-it-up kind of love. I'm called to love others that way as well. It's been difficult, and some days have been easier than others in that respect, but it's a learning process.

Dinner is starting (we're having Chicago-style pizza!), so I've gotta stop writing. But I will continue to blog more often. I hope you guys enjoy reading what I've been learning, although I'm only getting to share a small portion with you. I learn things every single day here... it's amazing. It's often been said that Summer Project is a spiritual greenhouse. It's so true!

More to come later! Love you all!
Jordan