The Mystery of Love

Something strange happened to the Daily Prompt. I usually write it a day ahead, and I glance at the prompts that are due for the remainder of the week. But the prompts seem to have changed. That’s one mystery that I’ve yet to solve 😀.

Love can feel like a deep mystery, but one might argue that it’s just nature’s way of bonding you with one particular person to create a family. I sometimes think of magical crushes that I had on girls when I was a young teen. She’d look at me, and I’d look at her, and it felt so magical or heavenly. I sometimes wonder if God sometimes gives us little tastes of heaven, just to give us an appetite for eternal happiness. And of course, you also might have the opposite – a taste of hell.

But are there any real mysteries that I’ve never solved? I’ve lots of little mysteries. I like to list all my memories of my childhood. And I’d often like to know the actual dates. Some months ago, I remember actually solving a mystery. When I was 11, I became a fan of Gilbert O’Sullivan. I had this memory of standing outside the Savoy Cinema in Cork where he was about to perform. I could have gone, if I hadn’t been too proud to ask my parents for the money. A few years ago, I searched a newspaper archive site to discover the date of the concert. I found no trace of it. I wondered if it was a false memory.

This being a Christian site, I could speak about theological mysteries, but it should be something specific to me and my life. Maybe I could write about when I became a Christian. That’s a bit of a mystery.

According to the Roman Catholic Church, I became a Christian when I was baptized as a baby. But I always think of my personal conversion in August 1980 as the date on which I became a Christian. Yet, when I get to heaven, perhaps someone will tell me when it really was. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that it was sometime between my baptism and my personal conversion.

As a child, you go along with whatever your parents tell you. I remember them telling us that [Spoiler Alert] Santa Claus didn’t exist. I was probably about six years old at the time. My response was to ask them if God existed. They said “yes”, but when I got into my teens, most people around me seemed like they just went along with Catholicism because it was expected of them. But you didn’t get the sense that they really believed it.

And when I discovered that other religions existed, I wondered how much your culture shapes your beliefs. If I had been born elsewhere, would I be something else? Are there elements of truth and myths, legends and philosophical speculations in all religions? Should I just pick and choose what’s best in each?

One thing that struck a deep chord within me was Jesus himself and the Bible. And when I first met evangelical Christians, they seemed very aligned to the church of the New Testament. I thought that this was the direction that I should take, but I didn’t like the prospect of upsetting my family or having my friends and associates seeing me as uncool or odd.

In August 1980, I committed my life to Christ and started attending an evangelical church. And any time I “gave my testimony” after that (telling the story about how I came to Christ), I gave a date in August 1980 as the date of my conversion. Evangelical Christians emphasize the need for a personal conversion, and we like to put a date on it if possible. But I sometimes wonder if things are a little more complicated. At some point early in life, I might have personally trusted in Jesus but became confused at various points. Nevertheless, even if that was the case, that date in August 1980 was significant because I very firmly committed myself to publicly identifying as a Christian, mixing with others who did so, and shaping my life around Christ. Maybe it’s a little like falling in love. A couple might not remember exactly when it happened, but the important thing is that they are in love and committed to one another. And marriage is the culmination of that. So maybe that date in August 1980 was a little like getting married.

When I think about other countries, I often lookup the statistics to see how many evangelicals are there. I try to pray for a different country each day. Today it’s Cuba; 56.5% are Christians and 8.8% are evangelicals. If I lived in Cuba, I’d attend an evangelical church and I would generally see them as true believers. But it’s always my hope that there are plenty of true believers outside the evangelical scene. But it’s not enough to be a nominal Christian. Hitler and Stalin were baptized as babies and were initially nominal Christians. It’s always possible that they might have repented in the last moments of their lives, but I don’t suppose anyone would say that being nominal Christians would get them into heaven. We see them as particularly evil, but God is so Holy that perhaps we’re all a little like Hitler or Stalin in His eyes until we repent and put our faith in Jesus.

And that gets us back to the mystery of love. However evil we are, God sent His Son into the world to save us. Even apart from sin, isn’t it amazing that God actually loves us, given that we’re so far beneath Him. And when you think of sin, it’s even more astonishing. We grow up taking it for granted, but when you think deeply about it, it’s amazing. Maybe that’s why John Newton wrote Amazing Grace.

Romans 5:6-8
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. ⁸ But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

John 3:16
¹⁶ For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.