I am a fan of art. I’m not always good at being able to distiguish between what’s “good” and what’s not, but I know what I like. I particularly like Van Gogh and Monet and the one painting, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grand Jatte, by Georges Saurat. Love is a kind of art.

I think of human love, our love for God and for each other, as the kind of art I used to make when I was 5. Basically, it was  me taking a bunch of crayons and scribbling all over a peace of construction paper. I had no purpose or intent other than to fill the paper with crayon colors. No matter what I created, or how good or bad it was, my mom took it and put it on the fridge as a prized work of art.

I’m sure God looks at our messy love for Him and for each other and smiles. It is an imperfect love, filled with all sorts of selfishness and ulterior motives and expectations. It’s a love of “What can you do for me?” and “How can you meet my needs?” God smiles, but He also is at work purifying us and our love until it becomes something like His.

God’s love for us is like a Monet or a da Vinci. It’s a masterpiece that causes your jaw to drop when you see it and takes your breath away. It’s something that every time you look at it, you see something you didn’t see before, something new. It brings tears to your eyes and joy to your soul.

What I want ultimately is not for my love to get better, but for God’s love to take over. I want God’s perfect masterpiece love to fill me up. I want God to love others through me with that kind of love I couldn’t even come close to on my own. That means there’s a lot of stuff inside me that has to go. A lot inside me that has to die.

It’s amazing to me to think that God can love the world and yet love me and you like we were the only ones. I am silenced when I think of what that love cost Him in tears, sweat, blood, and His life. And how willingly and freely He sacrificed to show me that love.

That’s real love. More than any of the top ten romantic movies or stories or songs or poems. This one– God’s own love for us– tops all the rest by far. That’s the kind of love I want. That’s what I need. That’s my food and drink, my oxygen, my everything.

Thank You, God, for that Love that won’t let go or give up or quit until the beloved is just like the Lover.