The fullness of
Your grace is here with me
The richness of
Your beauty’s all I see
The brightness of
Your glory has arrived
In Your presence God,
I’m completely satisfied

For You I sing I dance
Rejoice in this divine romance
Lift my heart and my hands
To show my love, to show my love

A deep deep flood,
An Ocean flows from You
Of deep deep love,
Yeah it’s filling up the room
Your innocent blood,
Has washed my guilty life
In Your presence God
I’m completely satisfied

For You I sing I dance
Rejoice in this divine romance
Lift my heart and my hands
To show my love, to show my love
“Divine Romance” -- Phil Wickham


I realized something this week. I’m into romance. Yup, I’m a romantic, what can I say? I like stories that end well. I like stories of pursuit and success. I like for the guy to woo the girl and get her in the end. I like a story where against all odds love somehow prevails.

“How?” you ask, did I come to this realization? Well I watched a movie. The entire time the “couple” kept doing things to hurt each other and make the other jealous. Finally, the guy realizes that he had been a jerk and tries to win the girl back … but it was too late. She leaves. And I felt bad. I kinda wanted to throw up. I kept thinking “This may be real life, but this can’t be the way it’s supposed to be.”

And I’m pretty sure I’m right. God used the idea of romance and marriage to show the relationship between the church and himself. He chose us!! Us, the church. He ordained that the church would be his body on Earth once Christ returned to be with the father. He pursued us. He kept on giving grace, even, and especially, when we didn’t deserve it. And then we turn on him. And I think it makes him sick.

In the Old Testament I keep reading these passages where God tells Israel that they are pretty much prostitutes. Leaving him for whatever they can get. He calls them she-camels in heat, and female donkeys who go looking for lovers. He asks them to look around and name a place where they have not been ravished. And he explains how angry he is, and how much he should punish them. But in the end, it seems, there is something like “but I love you so much that I would take you back as soon as you turned toward me.”

But I just can't shake the feeling that is not the way it’s supposed to be. Romance is supposed to work as such: He pursues because he blindly loves. We accept, for how can we not respond to he who loves us blindly, who pursues us with reckless abandon, to one who would die just to spend eternity with me. And then we spend our lives growing in one another, learning and becoming one.

So yes, I am into this divine romance thing, and maybe, just maybe, it will spill into the rest of my life ;-) … perhaps we should explore this further.