Have you ever tried to warn someone that the person they were in love with had some serious flaws? This is a conversation that never seems to go well because love is blind. You can only stand back and silently wait for the inevitable and be there to pick up the pieces when it doesn’t work out.
In many ways sin can be much like a bad long-standing relationship that we have given our hearts to. We see and maximize all of the good points of our activities while blinding ourselves against all the flaws & minimizing their seriousness. The large amount of time, resources, energy and emotions that we have invested into these activities make them even more difficult to walk away from.
Our blind love and weak willed bend toward sin makes it difficult to let go and walk away; even when we know it is ultimately a bad relationship going nowhere fast. Our hearts hold an unhealthy attachment, an unhealthy addiction toward it that only an outside pulling force can break.
Praise God who continually draws us toward himself despite our constant drifting and pulling away from him for worthless, empty idols. Praise God that our freedom and ability to let go is not based on our strength but his.
What comfort and humility it brings to know that God has binded Himself to us by his own unfailing love. He has an attachment to his own children that can never be broken by anything outside himself. He continues to hold fast to us by the strength of his grace alone. Even as we fight against him in our addictions and withdraws yearning for those old unhealthy attachments in our life that continually call us to come back to them – He never lets go, he never abandons us to ourselves.
Instead, he patiently abides with us and offers freely the strength we need to overcome. He opens our eyes so we can see the emptiness of what we once loved. Opening our eyes further to see his own infinite worth. His holy love towards us is stronger then any attachment. It continually draws and pulls us towards himself eventually breaking all our unhealthy attachments to this world as we want him more and want more of him. As we see he is better then anything this world has to offer, as he himself becomes our greatest treasure and reward. Once our hearts taste his true pure love, we are forever ruined for false imitations that can no longer deceive or satisfy us.
It reminds me of the old hymn by George Matheson:
O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.
O light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.
O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.
O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.
