Taking the leap

It’s February, the month of Valentine’s Day, and a leap year as well. Tradition has it that on February 29th the initiative for a proposal of marriage rests just as much with the woman as with the man! There may be a number of eligible men out there who have been resistant to the subtle wooing of a female but could be subject to a much bolder approach on the 29th and this will need a response!

We may seek to be attractive to a mate by way of appearance, how one dresses, conducts one’s self and even how we smell. Beauty is important but it is the beauty of the inner person that will captivate the heart of another - beauty that is more than skin deep.

The idea of marriage between a man and woman, together with love and faithfulness is God’s. In the Bible, God uses marriage as a picture of his own relationship with his people.

Now God displays his own attractiveness to each of us. He shows us the glories of his heavens; the trouble he takes in carefully and attentively dressing the flowers of his fields, giving them each both colour and scent; the coats he uses for his animals, birds, insects and fish. He displays his generosity in making food available for all his living creatures. His keen mind, wisdom and understanding should surely make us want to draw close. But like an indifferent bloke, who has no wish to be shackled to a would-be suitor, we all too often resist the eloquent (though metaphorical) words of God as spoken by his creation.

When one considers marriage, an essential element is what a potential partner’s character is like (I would term it their ‘inner- beauty’). We have an inkling of God’s own character built into us. What I mean is, we possess a conscience: we have a sense of right and wrong, a sense of justice and outrage when that justice isn’t forthcoming. All this points us to a God who differentiates between right and wrong and who will require justice in the end.

Our experience of creation is meant to draw us to the creator. That inner voice of conscience ought to alert us to the one who has put it there. For the most part, it would appear that the wooing of this attractive God is too subtle and is easily dismissed. But God does not give up his pursuit.

As with the woman, emboldened by the leap year, who may take the initiative to win her man, God pursues us with a more direct approach than the voice of creation and the giving of conscience has hitherto done. He comes in amongst us in the person of his Son Jesus. In this way, we can see his own attractiveness close up and begin to perceive his love.

May I paraphrase a famous Bible verse (John 3v16). ‘God loves people even in their ugliness of character, to the extent that he sent his only Son in order that whichever of them places their trust in Him should not be cast off at death but welcomed into his eternal embrace.’

A lover may speak of her/his undying love but the coming of Jesus, in order to win us to God, necessitated his dying. ‘Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.’

The need to respond to a woman’s proposal of marriage on the last day of this month cannot easily be sidestepped! Christians are those who have not sidestepped God’s initiative in his declaring of his love for them.

#allsortsofpeople #JesusthewaytoGod #bible #marriage #justice #creation #trust #generosity #sacrifice