사랑인건 A Puzzle Piece

God's love is supposed to be amazing. I have yet to experience it.

What is this love that Christians talk about? What is this great 'love' that sets Christianity apart from the other religions? Who among the followers of Christ can give a personal, own-word, description of who God is to them and what His love for them? I for one, cannot even think about setting a foot on that path of description littered with words and emotions invoked by God love because it simply does not exist for me.

The Sunday school teachings are so simple. God loves me because the bible tells me so and sent His one and only son to die for our sins. Simply and beautifully sung by the tattered and frayed bible verse inhabiting the back of our minds, John 3:16. 3:16 is so beaten and broken; so disheveled and distraught; that he has been used so flippantly. What is our first response against people who question our faith and loyalty to this religion? John 3:16. And yet we don't fully understand the whole extent of those few words describing God's love for us. There is no backing, no understanding that 3:16 deserves in our hearts rather than being simply banked in our minds.

Where is my foundation? Where are the words that are supposed to flow from my lips incessantly when asked about the 'love' God continuously flows unto me? I want to be able to shape the intangible and amorphous light of God in my life into something personal and comprehensible. I want to be able to understand the teachings of the bible that naturally flows from the understanding of that love. What I've learned so far is that God is a being that loves us and we are to love Him back. I personally can't say boldly that I do love Him. If I don't understand the love that is being given to me, how can I possibly begin to reciprocate it?

I desire to learn. I desire to understand. How can I start? What can I do? My view of God has been so blurry and altered by the window to God that I broke in the first place. My life has been a disappointment, one after the other. I see my faults all the time and I beat myself up for it. And in that way, I see my God as a strict and rebuking God. Not to say He isn't, but it just doesn't add up to the total portrait of His love painted by the words of Jesus and the prophets before me.

I have a long road ahead of me. I need to learn quickly, my life in college has only but two more years left. After that, I need to be able to stand on my own two feet. No more consistent church activities, no life group every week, and no more constant church community. I need to be able to get a job, cope with it, and even find a wife in the next 10 years of my life. Some wise pastor told me that your years get shorter because a year becomes just a fraction of your life. One more year for me is just a 1/20th more of the time I've spent here already. At 30, it will be just a 1/30th more of my life. I need to get going. I need to start exploring with my own two hands and feet and find the corner piece of the jigsaw puzzle so I can start building the foundation to the portait entitled 'Love'.

Then by faith, everything else will fall into place.