What Does a Bride Want?

The church longs . . . but

What are we longing for?

The day of His appearing

The New Jerusalem

An end to all pain

… yes. But why is the church that longs described as the bride?  What does a bride long for?  True, she wants to be taken care of, be healthy, be provided for.  And true, she wants to be rescued from evil, if she is being abused.  So keeping our words on spiritual plains, we say the church longs for the end of persecution, the end of wickedness, the end of sorrow, the end of pain, the fulfillment of promises. And yes, these are all part of the longing.

But a true bride longs for something much simpler . . .

. . . and it’s right for us to identify this basic reason that God calls the church a bride. He’s a physical God, and He uses practical imagery. There are other words that describe what marriage means, so when He says bride, He’s actually saying something — and it’s not as complicated as we think.  (We get all philosophical talking about covenant imagery and blood and Nascar – sorry, just threw that in to see if you were paying attention! Grin!).

Our culture is bleary-eyed with sex, and it messes with our understanding of the church as bride. People think “sex” when they think of weddings and receptions, when they think of love and relationships. Christians are occasionally more guilty of this than the world, for it’s more likely they haven’t been prematurely reveling in the sexual benefits of marriage. Though a healthy woman definitely desires sexual intimacy with the groom, the true core of her desire is altogether more eternal and transcendent.

A bride longs for unending communion and companionship with an OTHER who adores, and who she adores. 

That is what she wants.

So when God’s description of the church (men and women both) is bride, He is actually saying something deep about Himself, about our hearts, about our future relationship with Him, and about what our ultimate driving force truly is … to know and be known — it’s a two-sided exploration, a two-sided delight.

I stood at the women’s side of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, watching the sincerity and grief as ladies of every age leaned gently from their hips, pressing against the air toward the wall as if rocking, hiding their eyes in the pages of worn prayer books. Before them stood immovable, impenetrable, ton-sized stone, hewn several millennia ago, separating them from the Temple Mount where the presence of God had rested. And they cried, seeking God there, up against the rock.  But the Lord whispered to me, breaking and opening my heart at the same time,

“I want them inside.”

He desired their presence on the inside of that realm called kingdom and the heart of God. ...their presence with Him in the room where the Throne sits, not outside at the Wall. He desired them as individuals, as women, as His people, as heirs of His promises.

How they wept on the outside; how He desired they be on the inside. And between these two parties was the rock — impenetrable rock — made of something so simple and dissolvable it shocks: unbelief. 

The answer to the heaviest, most effective barrier of the world — the barrier actually between death and life — is like the answers to most of the barriers we encounter in life. The answer is light, simple, easy.

Believe.

The most wounded woman or withdrawn man can be whole with as little effort as those women could have passed through the rock, into the Presence of God. Believe My love. The hardest things are the simplest.

What keeps us from that two-sided exploration of each other, that two-sided delight of bride and God?  (And by trickle-down effect, the possibility of two-sided delight in other men and women, for once a heart is opened by God’s love, it is open to others as well.) 

Believe His Love.

He calls us bride.  It’s not a positional word, it’s a relational one.  Long for Him freely – He wouldn’t use the word if He didn’t mean for us to be it.

Authentic Prayer -- Not Anticipating His Answers

Often I don’t pray in true helplessness.  I go to God, already having formed (in my mind or even in my felt expectations) the scenario of what and how He will answer.  It’s rare that I ask, not knowing the answer (or not thinking I know how I should be answered). 

Do this when you’re a student, and you’ll be recognized as a fool who thinks he knows everything.  Do this as an adult Christian, in your relationship with God, and your intimacy with Him will be disastrously stunted – for you aren’t actually trying to know and discover Him (the one who, like a husband, thinks differently and comes up with very different solutions than his wife would), you are simply superimposing your own views of who He should be and how He should act.  This is treating Him like a non-existent person…an entity in name only…not a living, breathing, delightfully other-than, independent Thinker. 

Why might I have a boring, boxed-in life?  Because I’m not willing to let Someone outside the limited scope of my box (my intelligence, my experience, my vision) make pathways for me that will go past the horizon of my sightline.  Why might I have boring, boxed-in prayer interactions with Him?  Maybe I’m acting like He doesn’t exist as a separate person with thoughts independent from me.

For the first ­­six months of an infant’s life, they are not aware that their mother is a separate person from themselves.  I may be thirty-five years old in the Lord, but am I still acting like a five-month-old infant when I pray? 

Once we realize how different other people are from ourselves, they're fascinating.  There are certain people I love to listen to (my siblings for example, or my teachers)--incredibly intelligent people, with worlds inside them I don't have.  We each have lived whole lives, in whole realms, outside of any other's experience.  I may not have been a missionary in Kazakstan, but if I listen well, I get to experience…I get to almost live in…the riches of all that has been deposited in my friend while HE was a missionary in Kazakstan.  As soon as I realize how richly different from me each one is, I suddenly become heir to every land and life in the world.  Only close-minded self-preoccupation can keep me locked in the poverty of my own personal and thus limited intelligence, experience, vision, understanding, wisdom… 

I also may not be God (actually, I'm most definitely and happily not).  What an invitation I have to enter the world of His thoughts, His sight, His experiences, His wisdom…  Only close-minded self-preoccupation can keep me out of that exhilarating wealth.  

Praying is relating.  Relate to Him, not to yourself.  Ask, talk, and then listen.  Listen, and be ready for a conversation that might surprise you.  He’s difficult to anticipate, our delightfully-different-than-me God!

Call to me and I will answer you,

and will tell you great and 

hidden things 

that you have not known.

Jeremiah 33:3

Love Transcends

Only love does things that are impossible.  It alters what was unalterable.  It resolves every riddle and repairs the irretrievably broken.  Knowledge, prophecy, philanthropy, passion … they won't last.  But as my sister so eloquently texted me today:

- love transcends

Not in a rosy way

But it does

Everything of lasting good comes from love.  And love, when you get down to its core, is always between two actual people (often, one of them is God :)). It's not between two nations; not between two people groups; not between a person and an ideal, or a person and a place.  Real love is personal, because LOVE HIMSELF is a person.

Other motivations for good works put up good fronts and seem to have good results, but their fruit and their power will eventually fade (or rot). [1 Cor. 13:1-3] 

I was stunned when I read this morning that the High and Lofty One, who inhabits eternity, said "I dwell in the high and holy place, WITH him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones."

Who but Love Himself would take sinners (sorry ones) up to dwell in His high and holy place, so that He can revive their hearts and spirits?  He's not afraid we'll soil His pretty temple, or sin again in His holy place.  He's concerned to heal and comfort us, because He knows our fragility.  And its not just about being present with us, for He didn't just come to where we were (though He did do that) -- He's brought us to His high home to do the healing and reviving.  [Isaiah 57:15]

No "sane" human would do this.  Even a mother calls to the muddy child to stay outside on the doorstep, until she can rush to him with a damp cloth and shoe-removing hands. And she is the most loving of us all. 

Who but Love would carry me into His home, His land, without concern for himself or the mess I might make?  Love transcends—it is beyond reason and it overcomes every objection.  It is selfless, and it is powerful.

I realized tonight that of the very few men I've ever been seriously interested in, all had one thing in common.  Marriage to any of them would have necessitated, at some point, moving to a foreign country, learning a new language, and entering a second culture. 

This is rather shocking – I’m not an adventurer.  (Or maybe I am more than I think!)  There are perhaps practical explanations for this – I was always a fish-out-of-water, growing up.   Tall, white, intellectual … raised in the inner city.  I never fully “belonged”, except within the family unit and my relationship with Jesus.  So the in-between feeling of a whole new culture wouldn’t be all that strange to me.  But that’s not the real explanation for my willingness to embark on such life-altering, hazardous journeys. 

I know how to count the cost.  But I also know a few things about love. 

Song of Solomon says that a man could give all the wealth of his house to gain love, and it would be utterly despised.  But once he has gained love, once he loves, he will rightly give everything he has because of it.  God even gave His son. 

I couldn’t ever give my life in order to gain love, but I would give my life because of love.  The two are vastly different.  (Here is a most helpful analogy for understanding faith and works, by the way.) 

I know that my sister was correct:  love transcends.  It transcends the cost and it transcends the objections.  This is why I am willing for love to come with cost.  The value of the love will be greater than the value of the cost.  I know it would be that way in my “little story”, because it has already been proven through my part in His Great Story.  Love has already transcended all reason in the way God relates to me – He pulls me into His house, while I am still a potential liability, with an indisputable record of sin.  Why?  Because in His love He wants to revive me, and that’s greater to Him than the price He will pay for having me there.  And I have courage to go in, even when I know I’m a potential liability and completely unworthy…because I know that in the end His love will have (and already has—hooray for the cross!) transcended every objection to my presence in His home and my place at His table. 

This is the Great Story that overarches all other stories.  It defines our lives, and has determined our eternities.  May I live this Great Story in my little story -- the Love that never fails, never ends, and transcends all else.