Love Lifted Me

Apparently according to the calendars of some this is a day to celebrate romantic love and express that with the appropriate sentiments shared with that special significant other.

I never bought into the day myself for two reasons.  I come from a background that says basically if it’s not in the Word, then there’s no need to observe it unless it fits with legal requirements and does not contravene God’s Word.  As you know the dude they named the guy after wasn’t known for being a worshipper of the one true God, so I steered clear of the day without rubbishing it for others.

The second reason is something I only came across when I got into this romantic love business when I came across the woman who would fated to be Mrs Christopher Dryden.  (Ha, I can type that without referring to myself as Mr Authrine Dryden … d’oh, already typed it.)  As our relationship has grown over the years, special times bear even greater significance and the love we have for each other becomes all the more precious.  In fact so precious is the love that a day like this is rendered kinda useless.  There is no use for it at all in the context of days, occasions, opportunities, words, sentiments and moments that come along that display the sentiments of this day throughout our lives.  So again, not starting a campaign to banish the day, it’s just not anything I’ve taken part in.

Indeed I’d have left mentioning it well alone if it wasn’t for those gosh-darned Gaithers.  You see I’m here just minding my own business and catching up on programmes I recorded on the ol’ Sky Plus box.  One of them was a Gaither Homecoming episode which went through some of the classic standard hymns.  I haven’t had a good dose of Gaithers like I have for a while so watching this again really filled me up.  These Gaithers always get me at a vulnerable time in life and sure enough it didn’t take too many songs before I was blubbering away in gratitude to the overwhelming love of God.

One that particularly struck gold in my heart was their rendition of Love Lifted Me.  For me the lyric ‘when nothing else could help’ is virtually ‘as nothing else could help’.  I am not one who knows how to love and can be a rather cold and selfish person when the mood arises, but then I remember what Jesus Christ did for me at Calvary and what motivated Him to do that.  My worth for the deeds I had done or would do?  Don’t be ridiculous!  Virtues and values of outstanding merit?  Do me a favour.  Out of love He came from heaven to earth and lived a sinless life and died on the cross of shame before rising again with all power and filling those who follow Him with His Spirit so that we can be reconciled to our Father.  All out of love.

I can more than relate with the sentiments of the lyrics of this song, so whenever anyone wants to talk about how amazing love is and how it’s a day to celebrate love, this is the only love that matters to me.  It’s only in the power of this love that I even begin to start to look at myself as God would want me to consider myself.  It’s only in the in power of this love that I can even conceive of showing my wife any semblance of a supportive, considerate and husbandly love.  It’s only in the power of this love that our precious daughters actually look to a father who doesn’t do what he does out of obligation, but an overwhelming desire for them to experience this amazing love.  It is only in power of this love that my relationships have meaning and are imbued with a desire beyond the superficial and strictly convenient.

I know love because as nothing else could ever help, God’s love lifted me.

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

dmcd