Lavishness

Snatches of the lyrics of hymns have been playing in my mind all day. The theme you ask? The lavish love of Christ. The reason? This lavish love has been played out in my life recently; I’ve been loved with the love of Christ through my husband. The Bible commands husbands to love their wives “just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her” (Eph. 5:25, NASB). Mine has. We have been married twenty years (as of yesterday), and with three teenagers in the house at the end of a long six-week stretch between paychecks, my only expectation for the day was to receive a lovingly-crafted poem in a tradition begun a few years back when money was extremely tight. (It’s what I get for naively choosing to get married at the end of January—what was I thinking?) I waited in anticipation for my poem to arrive via email at approximately 11:30, which is the time I normally eat lunch. I got it, read it, and loved every word my husband wrote. As I had no further expectations, I was shocked beyond speech when a beautiful bouquet of a dozen red roses arrived approximately thirty minutes later. I have to admit that my first thought was “Who paid for these?” and my second was “What bank did he rob?” but my next was to feel warmth at being loved in such a pre-planned, extravagant way. Nothing could have prepared me for my husband to walk through the door late yesterday afternoon and hand me a large envelope that he said contained my “real” present. I opened it to find a passport application on the first page of several in the package. As I looked up at him in disbelief, he explained that we are going to travel to Nicaragua to visit his sister Kim, who is a missionary there, sometime in the near future. The way he treated me yesterday is lavishness. It was not expected nor deserved, and I had no gift to give to him.

His lavish gifting made me think of the lavish love of Christ, whom my husband more resembles each year that we are married. Just as I had nothing to give my husband yesterday, I have nothing to give Jesus but my heart, and I am so unworthy of the gift He has given me. This is why snatches of hymn lyrics began playing in my head over the last twenty-four hours. I’m amazed at the excessive, almost wasteful love He has for me, and I hear “How deep the Father’s love for us, how vast and beyond all measure that He should give His only Son to make a wretch His treasure” (Stuart Townend). I can never be worthy or give enough or earn His grace, and I hear “O to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be! Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee” (Robert Robinson). Several verses from the Old Testament speak of this lavish “unfailing love” that extends for a thousand generations on those who love God and obey His commands (Exodus 20:6, 34:7, and Deut. 5:10, NLT). Psalm 31:19 says, “How great is the goodness you have stored up for those who fear you. You lavish it on those who come to you for protection, blessing them before the watching world.” This theme of lavish love continues throughout the New Testament, but the verse that stands out to me is I John 3:1a, which says, “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God” (NASB). I don’t know about you, but I’m hearing “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me” right now in my head and in my heart (John Newton).