I was talking to a friend about past relationships and how often times we neglect to see the one-sidedness of them. What I mean is when a relationship isn’t going well, or is maybe on its last legs, there will be one person giving more. This leads to all sorts of problems, such as stress, anger, self-doubt, and usually the end of the relationship. This is unrequited love, that is love that is not returned.
It got me to thinking about God and how we often don’t return his love. This isn’t a new idea, nor any great revelation other than I started to think of it more from his perspective. Personally knowing what it is like to be in a lopsided relationship helped me to realize what kind of torture it is to love someone, and pour your heart out to them, and get nothing back. God has done the same for us, he has poured himself out for us, he loves us with an unending love, and he constantly pursues us, and we neglect to return his love.
Makes me wonder does God get stressed out? Does he get angry because he demonstrates his love and we ignore it? Does he doubt his ability to love? Is it okay to ask that question?
Unrequited love is a dangerous thing for human beings, it destroys us in a lot of ways, but it also helps us to grow and benefit from past experience. What does it do to God? We may not know in this lifetime, but what I do know is he has more emotion and more vibrancy than we often think he does. He is explosive with his love for us. He is jealous for us! We were created in his image, and this makes me think we must experience something of what he does with un-returned love.
