I hide food.
You might find a bag of Sweet and Spicy Jalapeño Cape Cod chips under the seat of my car. You might discover a Coffee Crisp chocolate bar, courtesy of my mom’s latest visit to Canada, in the back of my nightstand drawer. You might discover a can of Coke in the cupboard above the fridge.
And yes, sometimes I act surprised that I bought the hot salsa even when I knew it was the hot salsa. Why, because I am the only person in the house that likes the salsa hot and because I have a son who is always “starving.”
Many years ago, when Ethan was four, he woke Karen and me up in the morning to tell us, “Stay in bed, I won’t eat all the sticky buns.” He lied.
Hypothetically: If I were to come home with four donuts, any or all of my three amazing and generous children might act as if there were a worldwide donut crisis. Including myself, there are five people who live in my house but, “Seriously, Dad, four donuts?”
Earth revolves around need; earth’s math is solid, its measurements true. If you have five people and everyone wants their own donut, you either need five donuts or someone has to go without…and that’s why I hide things.
But there is a greater truth, a greater revelation that trumps the math of need.
Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, He gave thanks and broke them. Then He gave them to the disciples to set before the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over (Luke 9:16-17).
I bet Jesus didn’t hide stuff. He didn’t need to. He lived from heaven to earth where need was a foreign concept. He lived in the measureless need-trumping love of His Father.
I don’t know about you, but I have lived a great portion of my life from earth to heaven. My understanding of my need has been, for the most part, greater than my revelation of His love. I have done most of my thinking, talking, praying, and worshiping in the limitations of need, both with God and the world around me.
I have related to my Father in heaven and others through the lens of limited resources. I have confined heaven to the measurements of earth and I have discovered that if the reality of need, the limited resources of earth, is my compass, insecurity is a daily companion.
Insecurity can lead to strange bedfellows, so to speak. Insecurity is often the invitation to a wrestling match with feelings of hopelessness, envy, greed, lust, and all the other desperations of need. When need is bigger than love, dysfunction will worm its way into every relationship.
When we live from the limited resources of earth, we will intrinsically believe that for one person to have, another must go without; for one to be blessed, another must be cursed; for one to experience joy, another must know sorrow; for one to have peace, another must be oppressed; for one to be rich, another must be poor, and so on.
It’s the exact opposite of what Jesus revealed. In the measureless revelation of heaven, the last is also first, the weak are also strong, and those that give, receive.
There were no limited resources in Jesus’s reality; there were no limits to His love, generosity, mercy, grace, healing, hope, and life. There were no needs Love couldn’t trump, no measurements that couldn’t be surpassed.
Jesus taught us a new language. Jesus was a new language. He walked the earth as the Father’s love perfectly revealed. He was surrounded by the question of need and lived as the answer—Love. He taught us a new language—the measureless perfection of our Father’s need trumping always-good love…
Excerpt from Prone To Love which releases Feb 18.
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