Reckless or Wastefully Extravagant
__________
reckless adjective 1: marked by lack of proper caution
2: spending money or resources freely and recklessly
3: wastefully extravagant
4: to do something dangerous without worry of the risks
__________ Seven years later, the controversy still won't go away about Reckless Love - the worship song about God's determination to reach us. It popped up again a few days ago when someone said, "But God's love isn't reckless! I can’t stand that song.”
My response:
Most of what God does seems reckless to me. Of course, he knows the end before the beginning, but from a human standpoint, he does things we would be told are reckless.
It's pretty reckless to plant a tree in the middle of a garden, give it enticing fruit, then tell your creation not to eat it.
It’s reckless to set the one who will lead your nation out of slavery afloat in a reed basket,
then entrust your nation of people to this same man with a "speech difficulty" so extreme he had an appointed spokesperson?
Seems pretty reckless to me.
Would you march your people out of captivity straight to the banks of an impassable sea?
Or tell a father to sacrifice his son but hide a ram in a hedge, expecting the father to recognize it as the substitution?
Or tell a man to build an ark when rain has never fallen? And what's an ark, anyway?
Seems pretty reckless to me.
Who would anoint the youngest son of a family as king when tradition and culture said the oldest held that privilege,
then send that son when he was still a scrawny teenager to defend a nation's army against a taunting giant with nothing but a leather sling and a few stones,
and years later, still call him a Man After Your Own Heart after he committed adultery and then had the woman's husband murdered in battle?
Seems pretty reckless to me.
Would you send your holy, perfect son to a very unholy, imperfect world to walk among the broken, entrust him to a young woman and her not-yet-husband, knowing they will lose him for 3 days?
Would you gather a ragtag group of rebels to be his fellow travelers and posse and use him- and them- to defy the political machine and religious professionals?
Seems pretty reckless to me.
Only someone incredibly reckless would lead 5000 men and their families into the desolate countryside with no food,
then take a little boy's five loaves and two fish and tell your friends to feed all the people with them,
and have leftovers when everyone has eaten.
Seems pretty reckless to me.
Would you call a traitor into your inner circle and make him the keeper of the money purse,
serve him the same bread and wine you served all your closest friends,
then send him out to do what you know will cost you your life?
Seems pretty reckless to me.
Would you meet a band of soldiers in a garden at night when you've heard the plots for your death whispered in the streets,
and reattach the ear of your captor when your friend tried to defend you from being taken,
and forgive them as you hang there dying?
Seems pretty reckless to me.
Who but a reckless God who sees what we don't
would call imperfect people close to His perfection,
tell us to come face-to-face with Holy when we need mercy,
let us crawl into his brilliant spotlessness when we have the crap of life all over us?
Seems pretty reckless to me.
Who would call people who turn on each other at the first difference to become a community?
Who would tell us to love, forgive, and connect, knowing we will hurt each other?
And create us hungry for relationships, knowing full well that intimacy has a dangerous side, too?
Seems pretty reckless to me.
Doesn’t it seem reckless to love when hate is at our fingertips?
Surely, only reckless people would be patient in an urgent world,
Kind in the face of cruelty,
Faithful despite what we see,
Self-controlled when everything and everyone seems out of control,
Gentle in the middle of chaos?
Seems pretty reckless to me.
Who but a reckless, generous God would forgive us whenever we ask?
See our flawed humanity, but call us perfect?
Call us whole in the middle of our brokenness?
Call us holy when we act anything but?
Call us to be perfect as He is perfect?
Seems pretty reckless to me.
Wouldn’t only a recklessly generous God promise to never, ever abandon us?
Never leave us on our own?
Love us before we loved him?
Create us in his image knowing we will mar that image.
Give us supernatural gifts knowing our natural will tarnish the brilliance of them?
See who we are, not where we've failed?
Who would us back time after time after time after time after
time after time after time after time after time
after time after time after time after time
after time after time after time
after time….?
Seems pretty reckless to me.
*In my humble opinion, when someone hates a song about Jesus, it's usually way more about their relationship with God and their preference. Maybe that thing stirring in you is something that needs let go, delivered, or reexamined.
