It's Valentine's Day and as far as I'm concerned any day that reminds people that love is important and that we should let the folks around us know we love them is a good day. I read this excerpt from a Rob Bell book today and I just wanted to share it.

Divine Woo
By Rob Bell

You can put women from all over the world with nothing in common in a room together and they may not have a thing to talk about until one of them says, "And then he cheated on me," and instantly you have universal sisterhood.

Think of the poems, songs, plays, movies, novels across the ages that have dealt with this pain. Everybody understands it.

Think about some of the great country songs, the classics. There's "She Ripped My Heart Out and Stomped That Sucker Flat," and there's "I Sure Do Miss Him, but My Aim is Improving," and then there's my personal favorite, "Here's a Quarter, Call Someone Who Cares."

What do they have in common?

Heartbreak.

Someone got their heart broken by someone else. And now they are singing about it. And we can all relate. Even if the music gives us a rash.

Why is this? And why is it that it's not just about lovers, it's about parents and their children, friends who have been hurt by friends, business partners who part ways. Why is heartbreak so universal?

It's universal because we're feeling something as old as the world. Something God feels.

The Bible begins with God making people who have freedom. Freedom to love God or not to love God. And these people consistently choose not to love God. It's written in Genesis 6:6 that God "regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and it pained His heart."

These ancient writers saw God as having a heart.

That feels.

That responds.

That hurts.

That fills with pain.

God ... grieving.

And what is the source of this grieving?

People.

People God had made who have freedom. Freedom to love anybody they want. And freedom not to love anybody they want. God takes this giant risk in creating and loving people, and in the process God's heart is broken.

Again and again and again.

Divine heartbreak.

For some, this is an entirely new perspective on God. Many of the popular images of God are of a warrior, a creator, a judge, a system of theology, a set of absolute truths, a father, the writer of an owner's manual.

But a lover?

A lover whose heart has been crushed and who expresses it in ... poetry?

This raises questions about what is at the base of the universe. What, or maybe we should say who, is behind it all?

A list of rules?

A set of beliefs, which you either believe or you don't, and if you do, you're in, if you don't, you're out?

A harsh judge and critic, who's making a list and checking it all the time?

An impersonal energy such as fate, destiny, luck, chance or the force that you can tap into if you know the code or the technique or the philosophy?

The story the Bible tells is of a living being who loves and who continues to love even when that love is not returned. A God who refuses to override our freedom, who respects our power to decide whether to reciprocate, a God who lets us make the next move.

Love is ...
Love is handing your heart to someone and taking the risk that they will hand it back because they don't want it. That's why it's such a crushing ache on the inside. We gave away a part of ourselves and it wasn't wanted.

Love is a giving away of power. When we love, we give the other person the power in the relationship. They can do what they choose. They can do what they like with our love. They can reject it, they can accept it, they can step toward us in gratitude and appreciation.

Love is a giving away. When we love, we put ourselves out there, we expose ourselves, we allow ourselves to be vulnerable.

Love is giving up control. It's surrendering the desire to control the other person. The two - love and controlling power over the other person - are mutually exclusive. If we are serious about loving someone, we have to surrender all of the desires within us to manipulate the relationship.

So if you were God - which I realize is an odd way to begin a sentence - but if you were God, the all-powerful Creator of the universe, and you wanted to move toward people, you wanted to express your love for the world in a new way, how would you do it?

If you showed up in your power and control and might, you would scare people off. This is what happens at the giving of the Ten Commandments. The first two commandments are in the first person: "You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image ... for I, the LORD ... " But starting with the third commandment, someone else is talking: "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD ... " The rabbis believed that this is because God was speaking directly to the people in the first two commands, but they couldn't handle it. As it says in the text, "They trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, 'Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.'" So, the rabbis reasoned, the switch in person is because Moses gave them the remaining eight commandments.

Just God speaking is too much to bear.

If you're God and you want to express ultimate love to your creation, if you want to move toward them in a definitive way, you have a problem, because just showing up overwhelms people.

You wouldn't come as you are.

You wouldn't come in strength.

You wouldn't come in your pure, raw essence. You'd scare everybody away.

The last thing people would perceive is love.

So how would you express your love in an ultimate way? How do you connect with people in a manner that wouldn't scare them off but would compel them to want to come closer, to draw nearer?

You would need to strip yourself of all of the trappings that come with ultimate power and authority. That's how love works. It doesn't matter if a man has a million dollars and wants to woo a woman, if she loves him for his money, it isn't really love.

If you were an almighty being who made the universe and everything in it, you would need to meet people on their level, in their world, on their soil ... like them.

This is the story of the Bible. This is the story of Jesus.

Taken from Sex God by Rob Bell, © Rob Bell, 2007; published by Zondervan. Used by permission.

Rob Bell lives with his family in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he's the founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church. He also teaches in a short film format called NOOMA, and his first books are Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith and Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality and Spirituality.

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