Prodigal Medic....

I’ve had this thought rattling around in all the empty space inside my head for a while. (And trust me, there’s a lot of empty space in there!) I’ve been talking to friends recently about relationships. There are two of them that are in similar situations. For the sake of ease of writing, the summation/merging/anonymity of these two situations is this: Both have recently entered into new romantic relationships with guys that they both are significantly different from. Both of my friends are Jesus-followers. They both seek to make their relationship with God the driving force of their lives. Both of the guys that they are with are either not Jesus-followers, nominally spiritual at best, although both are open to the idea of Jesus as a philosophy or way to live. And the reason that this resonates so strongly with me is that I was in a similar situation years ago, although in the not to distant past. And because of the breakdown and discrepancy in faith and motivation of the heart, it was the most miserable and destructive relationship I’ve ever been in! I wish there was a way to share how “perfect” it was at the beginning, and how within a few months, I was happily wandering far from my Jesus and into the mouth of a personal hell that I’m still recovering from.

This all came out again in my head when I found some old Nooma videos. Nooma is a series by Rob Bell, a pastor from Michigan. They are somewhat cheesy little sermon-ettes, although his teaching is always amazing. In the second one he did, entitled “Flame” Rob talks about the differences in the Hebrew words for love. He talks about how there are three distinctly different words used to describe the love between man and woman. There is “raya” which translates best into “friend” or “companion.” There is “ahava” which is a love of the will, something deeper and far more significant than romantic love; it’s the love wanting to join your life to that of another. And there is “dode” or the explicit and sexual love.

Rob says something at the end of his video that struck me as so against the way we often view relationships. He says:

True sexuality is vast. It involves all of you. You have a body. But you also have soul and a spirit. And love is two people coming together and giving all of themselves to each other, forever.

I’ve heard from my friend how she was making out with this new guy, and she really didn’t want to and hated the experience. I’ve heard from my friend how instead of giving her butterflies (Should that even be something that we are really looking for? Are our hormones an accurate barometer for a potential partner?) the guy gave her anxiety attacks. This makes me so sad.

As more “dode” and more “raya” are expressed, they almost seem to have masked the need for “ahava.” This is the same pattern in both these relationships. And as I listened to the quote from Rob I just listed, I have to wonder: Can you really share all of you with someone who just doesn’t even know who or what all of you is? Can you expect that person to give all of themselves to you (I believe that if that person loves you, he/she will do that) without feeling like you’re actually left incomplete because their all will never match your all because of this huge Jesus that lives large in your heart? I believe this will create an unmatched and unfulfilled hole in this relationship that would leave any person wanting and desiring more.

I’ve thought about this issue of compatibility before, after my break-up and the reflection period that followed. There was such a deep sense of loss, and self-betrayal. I’ve heard so often in my life about the need to be “equally-yoked” and there is good reason for that, as I learned so painfully.

[A side note about being yoked: this has nothing to do with being well muscled. The term “yoke” also refers to an ancient Jewish concept about being under the teaching of a certain Rabbi. It means accepting that Rabbi’s teaching as your own and doing everything in your power to take the “yoke” of your Rabbi, to be like him. How can we ask this of someone who doesn’t believe that Jesus is the Son of God, resurrected? Is it fair to ask them to accept our yoke when it is so different than the yoke of one who has no Rabbi?]

Not surprisingly (and I don’t blame her for this either because she was being true to herself), the woman in my relationship grew less spiritual and less interested in Jesus as our relationship became more comfortable. It was her reverting to her baseline once the comfort level was present. It was easier for me to meet her at her level than it was for her to go through the work to open herself to the possibility that Jesus loved her and exploring that intellectually and emotionally. I just don’t think that the flames of ahava, raya and dode burn apart from each other and I realize that in disproportionate amounts, its easy to lose sight of what is most important: Jesus. I think this is just because we find ourselves getting a lot of “love” (or at least affection).

Rob was right. I’ll never be able to share all of me with someone who doesn’t love Jesus with all her heart, mind and strength. And I don’t care how intelligent, cute, sexy, gorgeous (or any other adjective you are), I’ll never chose to be attracted to you romantically or chose to love you romantically unless there is a love for my Savior deep in your heart as well. This has nothing to do with loving the world around me. This has nothing to do with being deeply invested with whoever God puts in my path, man or woman, and being as open and inviting to them as humanly possible, showing them as much grace and love as I’ve been shown. This has only to do with the foundations of the most sacred of relationships that we might be working towards entering: marriage. Maybe I’m just too old and have been around the block too many times to experiment any more, or maybe I’ve just learned what I’ve needed to. The sum of the lesson: I’d rather die alone than compromise on entering into a romantic relationship without both my significant other and I being able to go to church together, read the Bible, pray, read books, listen to sermons, love and serve the world around us and grow forever in faith and love for Jesus together.

I hope that these relationships go better than mine did. My only prayer is that they would not be led away from their Jesus like I was, and that maybe, these people will see Jesus in them and want that for themselves, and not just to impress these incredible women. I don’t normally share about my own life or failures either, and I just pray that my mistakes will offer inspiration to someone else to chose the one’s that they will love carefully and realize their own power in the situation.

I’ll close with Rob’s benediction from “Flame”:

May you honor the way that God created you.

May you have a profound sense of respect for the fact that you are a deeply spiritual and mysterious being, and love is ultimately a profoundly spiritual thing.

May you realize that the three flames are meant to burn together.

And may you discover the big flame.