God is the source of all masculine power; God is also the fountain of all feminine allure. Come to think of it, he is the wellspring of everything that has ever romanced your heart. The thundering strength of a waterfall, the delicacy of a flower, the stirring capacity of music, the richness of wine. The masculine and the feminine that fill all creation come from the same heart. What we have sought, what we have tasted in part with our earthly lovers, we will come face-to-face with in our True Love. For the incompleteness that we seek to relieve in the deep embrace of our earthly love is never fully healed. The union does not last, whatever the poets and pop artists may say. Morning comes and we’ve got to get out of bed and off to our day, incomplete once more. But oh, to have it healed forever; to drink deeply from that fount of which we’ve had only a sip; to dive into that sea in which we have only waded.
And so a man like Charles Wesley can pen these words: “Jesus, Lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly,” while Catherine of Siena can pray, “O fire surpassing every fire because you alone are the fire that burns without consuming! . . . Yet your consuming does not distress the soul but fattens her with insatiable love.” The French mystic Madam Guyon can write, “I slept not all night, because Thy love, O my God, flowed in me like delicious oil, and burned as a fire . . . I love God far more than the most affectionate lover among men loves his earthly attachment.” (The Journey of Desire , 137–38)
From The Ransomed Heart, by John Eldredge, reading 143. Ransomed Heart Ministries www.ransomedheart.com
