My beloved is mine, and I am his-Song 2:16.
God enters into loving relations with me, and it is only when I am melted
and encouraged by the perception and reception of these relations that there
comes the answering throb in my heart. The mirror in our spirit has the
other one reflected upon it; then it flings back its own reflection to the
parent glass. God comes first with the love that He pours over us poor
creatures; and when “we have known and believed the love that God hath to
us” [1 John 4:16], then, and only then, do we throb back the reflected aye,
the kindred, kindred love. For love is the same thing in the Divine heart
and in my heart. In the other bonds that unite men to what is man’s
corresponds to what is God’s. My faith corresponds to His faithfulness. My
dependence corresponds to His sufficiency. My weak clinging answers to His
strong grasp; my obedience to His commanding. But my love not only
corresponds to, as the concave does to the convex, but it assimilates to,
and is the likeliest thing in the creature to the infinitude of the Creator.
And so there is a parallel, wonderful and blessed, between the giving love
which says, “I will be to them a God,” and the recipient love which
responds, “We are to Thee a people.” Remember, too, that not only is there
this general resemblance, but that our love manifests itself to God-I was
going to say, just as God’s love manifests itself to us, though, of course,
there are differences that I do not need to touch upon here, in the act of
self-surrender. He gave Himself to us. And we may use another form of speech
still more emphatic, and say, He gave up Himself. For, surely, difficult as
it may be for us to keep our footing in those lofty heights where the
atmosphere is so rare, the gift of Jesus Christ was surrender; when the
Father spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all! Not only is
there this mutual possession, but each half, when cleft and analyzed,
reveals the necessity for a similar reciprocity. For God’s giving of Himself
to us is nothing to us without our taking of God for ours; and, in like
manner, our giving our ourselves to God would be all incomplete unless, in
His strange love, He stooped from amid the praises of Israel to accept the
poor gifts that we bring.
In Celebration of Life in Him,
Dr. Jim DeBruhl, gembeaux@bellsouth.net
