Erwin Raphael McManus Soul Cravings – Intimacy, Entry Eleven: Chased By Love

Intimacy, Entry Eleven: Chased By Love

Christianity, as a religion, has deep problems and inconsistencies between beliefs and practices. McManus spoke this to a group of Muslims in the Middle East. They agreed, but pressed him to share why Jesus came to earth. So, he related this story: ERM met a girl named Kim. Fell in love. He repeatedly pursued her until he felt he had captured her heart. He asked her to be his wife, yet she did not say yes. As a result, he relentlessly continued his romantic pursuit until she said yes. He did not send his brother or friend on his behalf. In matters of the heart, you must go yourself.  This is the story of God. He relentlessly pursues mankind with His love. It was not enough to send a prophet or angel. In matters of the heart, you must go yourself. Thus, Jesus walked among us and still pursues us to this day. If God’s entire goal was to get our beliefs correct (who is a prophet, what His name is, etc), or clarify right from wrong, or overwhelm us with miracles then He didn’t need to come down. However, in matters of love it must be face-to-face. In the end all religions misrepresent God and fail people, leaving us equally wanting. Many of us have given up on God because of this. We are told that God is a reluctant lover and His standards are unreachable. When in truth, God is not passive, but passionate. As Solomon’s lover, our Lord goes up and down streets, paths, unnamed roads, untamed wildernesses searching for us. Love exists because God is love.  Our souls will never find satisfaction until our hearts find this love we desperately yearn for.

Erwin Raphael McManus Soul Cravings – Intimacy, Entry Ten: What Must I Do To Be Loved?

Intimacy, Entry Ten: What Must I Do To Be Loved?

ERM: We say ‘true love’ lasts forever and yet it seems to have clear beginnings and endings. Eventually we all become disenchanted with love either because we can’t meet the true, everlasting love standards or those we love can’t meet them. Prepare to be disappointed. We all fail at love. Transferring what we know of love to religion one would expect it to be necessary to gain God’s love; such as: pray 5 times a day facing east, pray rosaries, bring offerings, light candles, memorize incantations, tithe, all to gain acceptance from the Creator. This premise of religion suggests God is just some really good-looking, smug, and arrogant Divine Being Who loves being the object of our affection. It’s like being in love with someone who has no interest in us. It’s all one-sided. It is the worst of corruptions to think we must earn God’s love and others have an inside track to get us there. Now we are beholding to them. The institution has control. However, if God’s love is unconditional then we aren’t bound to keep religious rules. Where governments have been unable to keep the masses in line religions find enormous success. What if the message of Jesus spread? Would anyone choose to be a slave to ritual and legalism over being pursued by love and relationship? The answer, unfortunately, is yes. Since we believe in conditional love and doubt the existence of unconditional love we run to follow the pied piper of organized religion. There is no amount of money or deed that will achieve the kind of love our souls craves. We’ve been duped. Our dilemma remains-we can’t earn, buy, or live without love. We long for what we are unable to give deep, profound, unending, immeasurable love. God gave this real love to us. We rejected it. God knows the sorrow of unreturned love.

 

Erwin Raphael McManus Soul Cravings – Intimacy, Entry Nine: The Elusive Nature of Love

Intimacy, Entry Nine: The Elusive Nature of Love

ERM: Undying love has a history of premature death! We seem uncomfortable with the concept of unconditional love because we humans have not experienced much of it among mankind. We mostly love each other for what we get out of the relationship. Such as: I think/feel you are beautiful, smart, gifted, funny, caring, passionate, etc. In summary you give me pleasure, comfort, encouragement, entertainment…it’s what you do for me that makes me love you and vice versa. No wonder we can’t maintain human love. We show our best side then are expected to maintain that performance for life. Impossible! So, we default on conditional love for it always fails us. This is how we judge God as well. We are nervous about His love because we know He sees right through us. Why would He love the unlovable within you and me? We know we are unworthy of unconditional love, and yet He loves us so. We fear the closer we draw to Him the more shame and guilt we will feel rather than the overwhelming compassion and forgiveness that awaits us. God is our home. He is the One for whom our souls crave. It is insanity to run from God and search for love at the same time.

Erwin Raphael McManus Soul Cravings – Intimacy, Entry Eight: Love Lost and Abandoned

Intimacy, Entry Eight: Love Lost and Abandoned

ERM: We all have abandonment issues of varying degrees. We are all searching for home… Where we can close our eyes and sleep, a place where there is warmth and somehow we are unafraid, a place where we gather around a fire and the room is filled with laughter and love. (me: I am reminded of this raw need innocently expressed by my two year old granddaughter crying at midnight for her mommy. Mom Maw is close to having Mommy but not the real thing. So a mid-night run for home we made! For this two year old, “Mommy is my home.”) “Home” is not the place we live, but the people with whom we feel most alive. Home is about love, relationship, community, belonging. We are all searching for “home”.As long as we can take another step we will continue the search.  If your soul is disconnected from its source/home, you will die (E.T. will verify).  It is human to crave home/love. We will crave it as long as we exist. We were created for God, in essences we cannot live without Him. Our souls long for  love, a place to belong (home), to be connected, for God. God is the One we desire the most, deserve the least, and ironically the One Who wants us the most. (me: come home)

Erwin Raphael McManus Soul Cravings – Intimacy, Entry Seven: Making, Taking, Faking Love

Intimacy, Entry Seven: Making, Taking, Faking Love

ERM: Sex can be a beautiful expression of love, but be careful not to mistake it as proof of love. Many men have demanded it as such; too many women have given sex hoping it would bring love. We all long to belong. We all long for intimacy, and physical contact can appear as intimacy, at least for the moment. Is there any time filled with more loneliness than right after having sex with someone who cares nothing for you or truth be told that you feel nothing for? There is no such thing as free sex. It either costs you your heart or soul. Sex as an act of love is a gift. When sex is a substitute for love, it is a trap. Love isn’t about volume. Love isn’t about conquest. Without love we are disconnected and alone.   Like it or not-much of our self worth is rooted in how we think others feel about us. If we belong to no one then we begin feeling worthless. That’s when we become desperate and will do almost anything to gain acceptance. We live in a world of users where we abuse each other to dull the pain of our loneliness. Deep down we know we can’t fill the vacuum within our souls by consuming others. We not only rob them but pillage our own souls. Eventually we figure it out. We can’t take love. we can only give it. Love is a gift that can’t be stolen. Love is not about how many people we use, but about how much we cherish one person. I we really believe we are capable of loving deeply then why wouldn’t we? Well, some of us don’t believe we are worthy of love. Some of us are so fearful of being alone that we settle for less in order to be in a relationship, no matter how dysfunctional it may be. Many are held hostage in abusive relationships by their need for love. The painful reality is that most  human beings fear nothing more than being alone.

Erwin Raphael McManus Soul Cravings – Intimacy, Entry Six, When Love Cuts Like a Knife

Intimacy, Entry Six: When Love Cuts Like A Knife

ERM: Choosing an isolated life may help us feel safer but it also lends to indifference towards the welfare of others and even to justification of violence. The great danger of giving up on love is giving into hate. A place without love is toxic to the soul. Love attracts forgiveness while hate breeds vengeance. Those of us who have loved and been betrayed know the tendency for bitterness and cynicism. We may conclude there is no such thing as pure love. Love is only a word for the weak. However, most of us have been or want to be very, very weak.

Erwin Raphael McManus Soul Cravings – Intimacy, Entry Five, The Danger Of Loving Nothing

Intimacy, Entry Five: The Danger Of Loving Nothing

ERM: Sadly when we feel rejected by the world our tendency is to give up on it and isolate ourselves. ERM references the Unabomber. Separating himself from others wasn’t enough; he wanted to inflict harm. He did so alone.

We are born to live in community. We must in order to be healthy. Independence is one thing-isolation another. Contact with the world isn’t optional but essential. The more we live disconnected the less we care about the well being of others. As we stray from community we grow more violent.

As a society we have grown desensitized to violence in urban America, especially among the poor. Columbine, Colorado shocked us. It broke the crime mold. ERM believes those two boys, who planned for over a year to massacre as many as possible, had given up on love. They no longer perceived themselves as members of the human community. They cared for no one, including themselves. When there is no love there is no value for life. Where hate consumes our hearts our drive is to destroy.

Disengaging from humanity breeds inhumanity. Our hearts are not intended to hate. Bitterness, jealousy, envy, racism, lust, greed, arrogance are agents of violence. We are a danger to the world when we love nothing and possibly more dangerous when we love the wrong things.

In Russia, on September 1, 2004, approximately 30 armed men and women stormed a middle school killing 344 civilians – 186 of which were children – to make a political point. What happens inside a human being for an ideology to become more important than human life (innocent, by the way)? How dark must a human life become?

We long for community, love, to belong. Yet, we seem incapable of sustaining any of the three. We are safer in the jungle than in the city. We, humans, are our own worst enemies.

READ: entry six, When Love Cuts Like A Knife. We will discuss on Saturday, March 25th.

Please leave questions and comments.

Erwin Raphael McManus Soul Cravings – Intimacy, Entry Four, One Is the Loneliest Number

Intimacy, Entry Four: One is the Loneliest Number

ERM: Have you ever had an explainable sense of loneliest in a crowded room or feel strangely connected to the world even though you are all by yourself?  We can enjoy solitude, but can also become lost in loneliness. Have you ever wondered if you are the only person unworthy of love? We try to earn love, feel love, to be loved. Our need for love is intrinsic – it exists in all of us. Our souls crave intimacy.

We are created to know God and to know love. It is love that moves God toward us and love pulls us toward Him. Follow love and it will guide you to God.

Love is the beginning of all things.

From the very beginning we were made for love.

You are the object of God’s love. We were created out of love by Him. Our souls long to know this love. We are creatures of love. We are designed to love and be loved. We all long to belong.

Our need to love, though rooted in God, is not limited to Him. Love expands as we give it away and it dies when we don’t.

Without love there is no life. To love is to be fully human.

READ: entry five, The Danger of Loving Nothing. We will discuss on Thursday, March 23rd.

Please leave questions and comments.

Erwin Raphael McManus Soul Cravings – Intimacy, Entry Three, Love Is A Thin Red Line

Intimacy, Entry Three: Love is a Thin Red Line

ERM: When we give up on love, everything else seems to go with it- joy, hope, forgiveness, compassion- they’re all interconnected.

When we aren’t given love, it breaks our hearts, but when we don’t give love away, it hardens our hearts.

Stranger than our need to love – our need to be loved. We were designed for love.

What is this thing love? Where does it come from? Why are we so moved by its presence and its absence?

We are most alive when we find it, most devastated when we lose it, most empty when we give up on it, most inhumane when we betray it, and most passionate when we pursue it.

Love pulls us, woos us, eludes us, and torments us sometimes all in the same day.

We were created for relationship. This is and always will be at the core of our beings.

All of us have an intrinsic need to belong, and all of us search for intimacy. No matter our differences, we all crave love.

Are we searching for lost love… or a love we have never known, but somehow we sense it awaits us?

Possibly the most powerful evidence that our souls crave God is that within us is the common longing for love.

We are all connected by a thin red line.

READ: entry four, One Is The Loneliest Number. We will discuss on Tuesday, March 21st

Please leave questions and comments.

Erwin Raphael McManus Soul Cravings – Intimacy, Entry Two, I’m Living In The World’s Most Dangerous Place

Intimacy, Entry Two: I’m Living in the World’s Most Dangerous Place (love)

ERM: No matter how powerful it feels, the staying power of love isn’t that high a percentage. The intensity of love seems to have no bearing on its resilience. The more we love someone, the more capacity we have to hate him/her.

Why does it seem that half the time we don’t know we’re in love until we lose it? Is heartache the only way to know the real thing?

The people who can hurt us deeply are those we allow to get deep inside our souls. This is what makes love so dangerous.

When we give our hearts away, we are left vulnerable and defenseless. No wonder we all search for love. Why do we keep longing for it?

Why can’t we give up this perverse addiction to love? Only attraction and sex  are needed for reproduction. Emotions, love,  and intimacy are unnecessary. But it just won’t go away.

No matter how many times we fail at love or it fails us we continue to risk all in pursuit.

In the midst of our most painful memories are our most treasured ones. If we had the chance to erase all the memories of our greatest loves – to be free of the pain of losing it, would we? Most would not.

We are addicted to love. We would give anything to find it. It’s as if we’ve been purposefully designed to search for love. Unable to resist.

We all need to be loved. Those who try to ignore love, who think they can live without it are worse off than the person desperate to find love.

To give up on love is to choose a life that is less than human.

To give up on love is to give up on life.

READ: entry three, Love Is A Thin Red Line. We will discuss on Sunday, March 19th.

Please leave questions and comments.