Butterflies

The first encounter. Butterflies. The cute and quirky little intrigues about another person that we find so enthralling and interesting as we meet them. The romantic beginnings always seem to hold us rapt—but then something happens. It gets old. So how long until we get annoyed with the unique traits of a person? Unfortunately, most romantic relationships usually drive down that road. At some point quirks become pet peeves and freshness grows to stale boredom. It's where the "butterflies" fly away. Or die. There's undeniable truth to it, but just the same, there's an equal amount of misunderstanding.

In Matthew 16 Jesus tells his disciples that he's going to die. So Peter "took him aside" and basically said, "Hey look, Jesus, you aren't going to do that. Let's be serious, there's no need to be rash here. In fact, we don't want you to, so keep it quiet with all this dying business, you're scaring everyone." This is obviously where in verse 23 Jesus turned to Peter saying "Get behind me Satan. You do not have in mind the things of God but the things of man." (paraphrasing). Sometimes through people who seem to have good intentions, but other times its our own mind and past experiences talking that say: "This is the good stuff. I want these feelings to last and please, please don't go away." In other words, the butterflies and uniqueness of a new relationship. The disciples and Peter in particular, didn't want Jesus to die - but what they forgot is that he had to. If Jesus was only die without the promise of rising from the dead, then the disciples had every reason to hold on to him for as long as they could, but that's not how it happened, and that isn't how it has to go down in our relationships either. Sad to say, the butterflies will die. It's inevitable. Because if they didn't, had Christ not, then where would we be? Because if the butterflies don't die, then the relationship never progresses.

I'm sure you can say when you were first Baptized, everything felt so new and fresh, but eventually that wore off and you had to work at it. So here's the simple question: at the incredible magnitude at which God has transformed your life from new believer to a courageous follower of God, would you every trade that? Or rather, swap it back to right after you accepted Christ?

With that, I'll posit to you that the butterflies must die, in order for a relationship to ever go anywhere. I'm privileged to speak in part from being on the married side of things, albeit newlywed, but still realizing that perpetual "newness" only becomes stagnation. It never goes anywhere. It Jesus hadn't allowed the butterflies to die, we would be royally screwed, without any hope of redemption and salvation - but he did, and now together we and him, must forge and work on, and work out our relationship every day.

The world doesn't 'have in mind the things of God,' and that's why relationships fail, because they want to keep the butterflies. But when those pessimistic thoughts come up, be it from others, yourself or Satan himself, say "get behind me, because I do have in mind the things of God." Enjoy the butterflies while they last, absolutely, but don't expect them to. Relationships aren't about first impressions. So when the Lord does brings you a spouse, you will love them and know that it's not the butterflies that make the relationship, it's the work you put into it carried by the strength and grace of God that enables you. Discovering a deeper understanding every single day and loving the not so lovable aspects of a person until you re-love those annoyances, loving even the not-so-great stuff is a far greater treasure. Jesus could have listened to Peter and stayed with us, could have walked the earth for another hundred-thousand years, we could have hung out with him, heard him teach, hugged him, shook his hand, and watched as he healed every disease in existence. But these sensations, excitements, and being free of all disease would not have made salvation available. I'm forever thankful he let the butterflies die.

Christ is Our Example

We have a tendency of looking at our lives and comparing them to Jesus in the wrong way. We say, “he was God and because of that we can never actually expect to be just like him.” But if we give him his divinity without his humanity, we have taken away very purpose in his coming. If we only aspire to be like a Godly man or woman, we, in our imperfection are still pursuing imperfection and that will never achieve absolute oneness in the perfection to which we have been called—he must be our ultimate aspiration! No, none of us can remain sinless, but what still remains is the example of what sinlessness looks like and it should be our every striving to obtain it. Were it not, there was no reason for God to manifest himself as a man “we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin”(Hebrews 4:15). His humanity said 'I am like you,' and his divinity said ‘all things are possible.’ This does not negate the necessity of Godly examples and leaders in our lives, they are also vital, but we cannot stop there. If we settle on a man, we have instantaneously fallen short and found severely lacking. By man we go from imperfection to imperfection, but by Christ we go from glory to glory. We must be Christ’s protégé foremost, because his example will never be wrong.

4 Real

So I'm posting, can you believe it? Not that I have anything necessarily, but I still felt the urge. This could be promising. More so, and more likely so, this post is stemming from my desire, albeit unfruitful desire, to keep a more person journal - diary if you will - which chronicles a variety of my midday meanderings as well as my time with God, what he's speaking, what he's leading me in. In other words, it wouldn't be a public journal and certainly not one online, but this is what I have to work with currently.

That said, I also would really like to start writing more consistently again solely for writing's sake. I'm in the process of putting together edition #2 of my second poetry collection, entitled "Things Considered" which I'm hoping will provide a much needed spark. I could post some of my thoughts concerning poetry, little pithy witticisms like, "Poetry is a communal activity, because meaning is found in discussing it" but I won't. Other than that one.

There's really a lot going on in life, much of which I'm thoroughly thrilled about, or at the very least is worthy of some degree of note, but I don't feel as compelled to pull it apart by writing about it. This I suppose, has to change if I ever plan to succeed in maintain an effective daily journal.

I think I'm finished now.

Yep.

Okay then.

Be back in like 7 months.