...because He first loved me.

i supply, you demand

is this the deal we made?

making up and compensating for and filling this space inside you

but never gaining anything

my reserves are running low

is your conscious wearing thin?

occupying your half vacant heart until [hopefully] Someone better rides up

and ropes you in again

you want without words

will you claim me as a right?

covering you with love and arming you with certainty will never get old

but how i wish it would be returned this time...

...i endure, you attain

what is love without a price?

fighting is not fighting at all if there is no battle to win or cost to pay

so let me give my love away

(c) 2009

several of the conversations i've had with friends during the past few weeks have been about love and our views of it. these conversations got me to thinking about how God's view of love is completely opposite of ours. we have this idea that if we give of ourselves, we need something in return. it's been ingrained into us. our pride tells us we shouldn't be the ones making all of the effort.. all of the phone calls.. all of the sacrifices... and on and on..

..but the love of God goes beyond our ideas and thoughts and reaches to the lowest places. He loves us regardless of our actions, and He commands us to love as He loves. i'm still learning, little by little, but i want to love like Him. yes, others may title it as being weak or taken advantage of, but it's only because they have a different definition of love than the one found in Scripture...

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

1 Corinthians 13: 4-7

I will give you this, my love, and I will not bargain or barter any longer. I will love you, as sure as He has loved me. I will discover what I can discover and though you remain a mystery, save God's own knowledge, what I disclose of you I will keep in the warmest chamber of my heart, the very chamber where God has stowed Himself in me. And I will do this to my death, and to death it may bring me. I will love you like God, because of God, mighted by the power of God. I will stop expecting your love, demanding your love, trading for your love, gaming for your love. I will simply love. I am giving myself to you, and tomorrow I will do it again. I suppose the clock itself will wear thin its time before I am ended at this altar of dying and dying again. God risked Himself on me. I will risk myself on you. And together, we will learn to love, and perhaps then, and only then, understand this gravity that drew Him, unto us.

-Donald Miller "Blue Like Jazz"