where waves grow sweet

My neighbors have a Yorkipoo puppy named Chase. As you know, that is also the name of my son, so their family refers to the puppy as “Chase the dog” and to my kid as “Chase the person.” There is nothing cuter than hearing Cruz’s little four year old voice, with r’s that sound like w’s, say “Chase the pwerson, do you want to pway Legos?” 

Anyway, Chase the dog has the sweetest temperament. He loves to be with people and pours out exuberant affection in response to any attention, which delights me to no end. When our neighbors were on a brief vacation this summer, they asked me to stop by their house daily to give him food, walks and attention. After feeding and walking him one morning, my day got away from me and I wasn’t able to return as early as planned for some extended play time. During his solitude, Chase the dog decided to eat a portion of the beautiful blue sectional in my neighbor’s family room and spread the stuffing around the house. I felt awful. But the destruction stopped as soon as he was given the love and attention he needed and the sectional has since been repaired, so all is well. Phew!

But here’s what I’ve been thinking about. Chase the dog didn’t chew up the couch because he’s a bad dog. It’s because he is a breed that is wired for a high level of relationship. The destructive turn his loving energy took was simply a response to an unmet need. We too were wired for relationship, first and foremost with our Master, from whom all other relationships flow. Unlike my inconsistent dogsitting care, God’s love and affection is constant and will never, ever fail and, because no true relationship is ever one-sided, He gave us a very special emotional energy to return this love. This energy, which could also be called worship, can’t be contained because it’s good and isn’t supposed to be, but… if there is a breach in our ability to perceive or receive His love, our energy will turn destructive, not unlike Chase’s attack on the sectional.

When this breach happens, it is not something to feel guilty about, but to become attuned to. There is an enemy prowling about, doing his best to distort the truth of our Master in order to create a disconnect in our relationship with Him. Satan knows that when we are disconnected from our Source, our worshipful energy will be expressed in compromised or outright bad behavior. And then he will point to that behavior and blame us (or God) for it, which will create further separation because we feel unworthy or untrusting. The cycle will continue, deepening the disconnect. All the while our worship continues to pour out like a rushing river into inferior places.  

Like Chase is not a bad dog because he chewed up a couch, you are not a bad person because you have done or continue to do wrong things. Please hear me on this. Bad behavior is caused by a Love deficit. Always. I am convinced. Even if you have struggled with a lifelong addiction – to alcohol, drugs, porn, approval, achievement, (fill in the blank) – or have failed to make a single good choice in all your years on earth, you are not a bad person (and let me rephrase that for the performance-bent people: You don’t have to be a good person to be loved.)  You are simply someone who hasn’t understood how very loved you are; how accepted; how redeemed (now; not when you get your act together or prove that you are worthy). Your addiction is actually proof that you are a worshipper because it demonstrates your ability to love with abandon. It’s just been misplaced because of a disconnect from the Source of pure, joyful, true worship. Can you imagine how passionate your affection will be when you get connected to Love itself?

I say this from experience. I knew nobody as bad as me. I thought there was something bent or broken in me that could never be fixed. I struggled with addiction in countless forms, selfishness and self-hatred (and all sorts of other things that start with self-), and made impossibly wrong choices on a regular basis. For a while I didn’t even want to change, but when I finally did, it seemed impossible. All my efforts failed because I was trying to fix the behavior which wasn’t the root problem. It was only when I was met by God’s love that my energy which had been so terribly misspent on self-destruction began to be channeled into loving Him back. It was in such small measure at first because it was all I was able to receive and therefore give, but more and more I have been transformed by it. There is nothing sweeter to me now than this heart that is learning to pour itself out in earnest, loving adoration of this God who saved me and into joyful relationship with Him. I can’t encourage you enough to connect to the Source. Let Him love you. And let your love pour back out to Him. There is nothing more beautiful or more satisfying on heaven or on earth. Because it’s the very thing that we were made for.

Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you.
Isaiah 54:10