Musical Musing: How He Loves Us- John Mark McMillan

Yup, you’re getting another one on this song. It’s so rich in imagery, and our worship leader at church really loves it, so we’re singing it a lot, that it comes up a lot in my rotation of music… meaning it’s there to be meditated on frequently. This time, we’re starting and stopping with the first five words of the song: “He is jealous for me.”

The Bible says that God is jealous for us. What does that mean? As we tend to understand jealousy, it’s a very negative, selfish, angry, consuming emotion. It’s possessive, suspicious, resentful… indeed, when I speak of a God who loves us, the idea of jealousy and love seem almost opposed to each other… that if God truly loves us, then jealousy is impossible, because the things we are told define love are diametrically opposed to jealousy. Love is selfless. Love is kind. Love is trusting. Love always hopes.

Ah, but does jealousy have to be a bad thing? We’re so trained to think of it as a negative as a bad thing, but could it not be a good, beautiful thing? Is it not possible for love to be possessive of the one it loves, to guard the one it loves from all others to the best possible end, the best possible outcome, pushing the beloved to conform to the will of the lover for the good of the beloved? Bear with me; I know it sounds bad, but we all do it, and if not directly, we expect others to. You don’t believe me? Watch parents with their children.

A small child learning their way through the world must learn the nature of things. They must learn that the knob on the stove controls the things on top, making them “hot”, and what “hot” means… that it burns, and that feels bad. As parents, it’s our job to love our children enough to conform their behavior to the pattern we and society have set for them to the best possible outcome; you don’t touch hot things that burn you. Your child has to be taught about respect for property; that we don’t take things that do not belong to us, whether that means that we pay for things when we go to the store, or that we ask for permission to play with our friends’ toys before playing with them. As parents, we love our children enough to teach them the rules by which society operates. We bend their natural tendencies, conforming them to our wills. We, the lovers of our children, push our beloved, our children, to conform to our will, for the good of our beloved.

And yes, we express a jealous love for our children… and a healthy, beautiful, good jealous love. When we see things competing for our children’s attention, or for our influence in their life, especially when the new influence is to their detriment, you better believe we become jealous for the good of our child! How many parents limit the amount of television or internet access their children have? Or what their children can access, such as only G rated movies or PG rated movies, or only these shows on TV, or only these sites on the internet? You’re demonstrating a healthy, jealous love for your child, jealous for the influences in their life, limiting what shapes and molds their minds, so that it’s easier for them to bend to the patterns you’ve set as best pleasing.

And who among you, if you found your child wrapped up in drugs, or prostitution, or some other crime, wouldn’t try to intervene? Who among you wouldn’t try to persuade them to make other, better choices? Love for your child is jealous there, too, when you try to draw them away from what is doing them harm and back to yourself.

Why, Beloved, can’t we let God love us that way? Why can’t God’s love be that sort of jealous? Not that He, necessarily is a parent and we are all children, and He’s infantilizing us all the time… I don’t mean to say that you are incapable of making right choices. But if God is perfect, and perfectly just, and all-knowing, then He knows the right choices for your life at each step of the way, and His love for you is such that He longs for you to make those choices. He wants the absolute best for you, longs for it with all that He is, and it breaks His heart when you choose things that aren’t right for you, things that will ultimately cause you pain. God is jealous for you because God knows which path, of all of them out there, will lead you to peace, and He wants to lead you down it.

I’m actually glad that God is jealous for me. To me, it means that He’s actively involved in working to seek my best, actively involved in the events of my life, drawing me towards Him, calling me to a deeper relationship with Him. It means that the Lover of my soul is actively seeking His beloved and her best. He is jealous for me. Oh! How He loves us, Beloved. How He loves us so.