Let me start here…

A couple of years ago I started leading the worship song “Reckless Love” on Sunday morning.

The song blew up and quickly became a favorite. While we sang with gusto, I sensed a hiccup when we belted out “overwhelming, never ending, reckless love of God.”

Hold up… Is God reckless? Like, is He not in control. (Hmm, that  might explain the last year of my life.)

Is He, what, moody? One minute He’s blessing the world, the next minute terrorizing us with hurricanes and tsunamis?

Does He love me or not?

The world reckless recked us.

The lyric wasn’t intended to touch our minds but touch our hearts. 

After one Wednesday evening rehearsal, one of my singers approached me and said she couldn’t sing the song on Sunday. “I’ve thought a lot about this word reckless, we even discussed it in home group, and I feel I cannot sing God is reckless. He’s not.”

While she had experienced a radical, pursing God love, she felt in no way she could sing the word reckless.

“I’ve come to a higher understanding.”

I get it. When we think of reckless we think of the sixteen year old boy drag racing his dad’s station wagon. Or of jumping into a crowded swimming pool without looking first. Maybe leaving a can of gasoline near an open flame. Reckless!

We think rash, heedless, unaware, without caution. Perhaps even foolish. Irresponsible!

“Might I submit to you,” I said. “You’ve not reached a higher understanding but a lower one. One that you understand with your mind but not your heart. You’ve boiled down an encounter with God to what makes sense to you. Not what actually moves you to love Him more.”

God’s love is and was indeed reckless. He did not care about the consequence of loving you and me. Jesus irresponsibly left heaven to become a man and die on a cruel, cruel cross for our sins.

He gave His love without hesitation or reserve knowing FULL well, 80% ( or some number) of the earth’s population would never love Him in return. That they would mock, ridicule, despise Him and those who believe in Him.

He was reckless.

Jesus said this:

“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? ¹³ And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. ¹⁴ In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.” Matt 18:12

He’s saying the shepherd would leave the ninety-nine alone to go look for a lost sheep. Some translations say, “will he not leave the ninety-nine in an open field.”

What if his family came along and saw the shepherd not tending his flock. That the family herd, their livelihood, was left defenseless if wolves or marauders came along. I can see it now as the son (or daughter) returned carrying the one on his shoulder.

“Where have you been? You’ve been reckless… leaving these ninety-nine to go after the one.”

That’s the measure of the Father’s love for us! He’s not concerned about His reputation, or what it cost Him to go after us, to pay the price for our sins. His love is indeed full of reckless abandoned.

“I’ll do what it takes to rescue you.” 

What does this have to do with pro life? Bear with me.

I don’t typically get “political” here but watching the growing number of actresses vehemently defend their choice to abort their child, has stirred my heart.

Not to condemn. But to ask gently, “Where is this all headed?”

In the ’70s, abortion proponents never thought it would become a billion dollar industry. That abortion would become a form of birth control. They never, ever imagined 60 million babies aborted. (I’m searching for the articles I read.)

So now we have Alyssa Milano, and others, shouting with joy over their abortions. They think they’ve come to a higher understanding. A greater awakening of rights and liberties.

But I submit to you they’ve come to a lesser, lower understanding of human life, thus themselves. I’m not condemning them. They are a product of our feminist culture. Just observing.

If I didn’t have Jesus, I’d be as loud, as angry, as vehement, as foolish as they. And just as scared.

The question of unwanted children is always raised in an abortion argument. What about those in foster care, in need? And indeed that is a topic to be dealt with and addressed. But it’s a separate debate.

Though we can see that almost fifty years of legalized abortion hasn’t reduced the number of unwanted children. In fact, the number has increased. Families have fallen apart.

Death breeds death.

The argument for life in the womb is a single, solitary argument. It hurts my heart to see these emotional, radical women who are so great at emoting and not so great at reasoning.  They care more to be right and justified that to hear truth.

And to be honest, I’d feel horrible of someone told me I’d “murdered” my unborn child. That’s a heavy burden to bear.

Yet, part of healing is facing the truth.

“All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23

We are seeing this alive and well:

^“Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

^“Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.” Romans 1:24-25

^“Justice is turned back, And righteousness stands afar off; For truth is fallen in the street, And equity cannot enter.” Isaiah 59:14

I’m not here to pick a fight. I’m here to raise the question: Where is this all headed? And are we actually enlightened or dark and foolish?

Is our quest for “liberty” causing is believe we are intellectually superior while we are in-fact cutting off the rudder of our hearts?

We can’t be all head and no heart. Nor can we be all heart and no head.

We are mind, soul and spirit.

I feel for any woman who’s had the choice of abortion. There’s no judgement from me!

But I also cannot keep quiet. The “fetus isn’t a baby” argument is just no longer valid. We have science, technology to show us a fetus in in fact a human being.

While unwanted pregnancy is a struggle to be sure — especially if in rape or incest — but a life is life. There’s no healing from killing. No going back. No pretending it never happened.

I’m for women! Strong women. And sometimes that means we make the decisions that are not best for us but for others. Perhaps to give birth and put the child up for adoption. Or to raise the baby ourselves.

Yet so many of the pro choice shouting today is “I am more important than a fetus.” Jameela Jamil said, “Suck on that,” here. This is not a comment of a strong woman but a wounded, immature one.

I mean, we are talking about human life here. “Suck on that?” We’re not debating who’s school is more cool.

The conversation isn’t civil any more. It’s angry. Raucous. And nothing good comes from that environment.

We read passages and stories like these and are aghast:

^“And the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak; and the Sepharvites burned their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.” 2 Kings 17:30

We consider this barbaric. What’s the difference between then and now? Children are burned in the wombs of their own mothers.

So what’s my point? I guess if God in His reckless love died on a cross for you and me, knowing a good many of us would never accept His love, we can be reckless in our defense of truth. In other words, not caring if it hurts us or gets us slapped with labels.

I feel like I can’t be silent. Not that anyone is listening. I’m probably just preaching to the choir, but maybe there’s someone in your life you can touch by saying, “Hey, God sooo loved you…”

He can heal your wounds, deliver you from fears, and help you raise a child if you find yourself alone, a single parent.

He has already forgiven you. Just open your heart and receive it! Forgiveness is such a powerful tool.

Let’s not be prayerless. Bring it all before the great throne. Be “reckless” in your love toward Him. Toward life.

“We can do more talking to God about men than talking to men about God.”

Grace and peace.

 

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