Love Hurts

My mother loves God. She has a story that she tells about a painful time in her life where she heard God’s voice say, “Ask me why this hurts so bad.” She responded, “Why, Lord?” He answered, “So you can know how bad it feels when you hurt Me.” She says she cried for days after this conversation with God. She says her reason for crying was because she knew that no matter how much she tried not to, she would hurt God again.

The “First Lady” of my church’s congregation loves God. She and I have had many conversations about our love for God. Several times, she has said to me with deep emotion in her voice, “I don’t want to hurt Him.”

I’ve listened to my mother relive this story over and over for many years. Each time, there is something solemn underneath the breath in her words. It's still so real to her, as if she is living it out. Yet, I've never asked her why she's so sure that she will continue to hurt God. When my First Lady speaks those words with so much passion in her voice, I never ask her how she could possibly hurt God. I’ve wondered, though. Because I know Jesus already suffered and died for us, and He never has to suffer again, I’ve wondered why they talked about hurting God right now in the present. I didn't understand it, but every time I have heard these words from these two women I respect, appreciate, and love, my mind has weighed their words knowing there was more to them than I was understanding in the moment.

Recently, I ended a time of sinfulness in my life. I’m not talking about a slip-and-fall, my-flesh-was-weak, I-didn’t-mean-to-do-it incident. I’m talking about a conscious and continuous time of sinful behavior despite my love for God and His unceasing graciousness toward me. I took a hard stumble in my walk with Christ with no one to blame but myself. No one forced me to do it. Every single time I did it, I was conflicted and convicted, so I knew it was wrong. I confessed it and solicited the prayers of my closest friends while I was doing it, so it was clear I was guilty. I even spent many of my days and nights crying over it. Yet, I did it repeatedly for a year and a half. To God be the glory now, it has been a little over a year since He delivered me from my bondage to that sin. It was a freedom that was made possible by God’s eternal love for me and my ever-growing love for Him. But that deliverance, borne from love, really hurt. Love snatched me out of my sin, never to return to it. It didn’t remove the sin gently. It ripped me from it, and I am still in recovery. My emotions and my thoughts are still affected by my betrayal toward God. Every now and then, that place in my heart that was carved out and reserved for my sin feels like a tiny void that God has yet to completely fill. I don’t miss the sin, but I miss who I was before the sin. I’m different. I see things, people, and even God differently. In some unfortunate ways, I lost a purity and an innocence toward God and toward others that I realize I can never get back. The positive is that my life has been turned toward God’s commands and His standards in a more committed and sincere way. I experienced His grace, love, mercy, protection, and redemption in a way that I hadn’t ever before. He didn’t allow my blatant sinfulness to destroy my life. On the contrary, He blessed me tremendously when I finally turned back toward Him. So, for whatever I have lost that affects me in this life, I have gained in ways that will follow me into eternity. Although my experience was painful, I’ve learned to love God more. And I’ve learned to hate…SIN.

The other day, I had a moment where I was faced with a choice to either follow a sinful desire or rely on the Holy Spirit to help me obey God. I was just at the point where it felt like sin was getting ready to win the battle when, suddenly, I began to feel my love for God being stirred within me. I thought about how much sin I had already committed in my life, and I said out loud to myself, “I’m not going to do this one. No way! That’s one less sin Jesus will have to pay the price for.” Now, I said those words, but I didn’t really know what I was saying. Love was speaking in me, and I just voiced what I felt. All of a sudden, I began to envision Jesus. I thought about how He died for all my past and future sins. I thought of the sins I so recently committed, and how He suffered for my indiscretion. Then, God opened my understanding and showed me a scene in time-eternity. I could hear my mother and my First Lady’s words, and I knew what they meant. I saw Christ being wounded, beaten, chastised, humiliated, and crucified for me. I saw Him taking the punishment for every unrighteous act, impure thought, and unholy compromise ever to occur in my life. Beyond that, I saw Him in eternity, suffering for the sins of everyone – all generations since the world began and all generations until the end of time. I thought about how He died in my place. I thought about how He now lives to give me power over sin and death. It was at that moment that I was overcome with gratefulness and grief, reverence and regret. I saw this one sin in a new light. And even though it wasn’t enough to keep Jesus off the cross, even though it seemed so insignificant in comparison to the multitude of my transgressions against God, I became incensed in my desire to spare my Lord this pain. I thought to myself through my tears, “If I keep myself from doing this right now, that’s one less throb, one less nagging ache, or one less sting His body will have to endure on that day that happened over 2,000 years ago. It doesn’t remove the slap or the spit from His face. This one denial of a sinful act is not even a whole lash-worth of His pain. It doesn’t keep one thorn from being pressed down into His head. It isn’t enough to remove even a single letter from the mocking words He endured. It doesn’t keep any of the nails from being forced through His hands or His feet. It doesn’t keep His garments from being sold to the highest bidder. It doesn’t even equate to one drop of His blood that was shed. But whatever it does amount to, I’m going to spare Him that much. I’m going to reduce His suffering on the cross by this tiny amount by denying my flesh this one time, because I love Him. I DON’T WANT TO HURT HIM!”

I realize that Jesus had to do what He did. In order for me to experience eternity with the God who loves me and the God who I love, He had to hurt. And now, because I love Him, I hurt. I still haven’t asked my mother or my First Lady the meaning of their words. I’m persuaded to believe that their explanations would reveal encounters with God’s perfect love amid their flawed humanity. I am glad to join them in knowing God like this. Even though it may bring me to tears, it lifts up my eyes toward heaven and allows me to see the beauty of God’s real and eternal love like I’ve never seen it before.

Key Scripture Reference: Hebrews 9:11-28, Matthew 27:11-56, 1 John 4:9-10, Hebrews 10:19-39, Jeremiah 31:3

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