The Deeper You Know

We were all getting into the car to go somewhere. I don’t even remember where we were going, I can’t know very well where it took me. Now you get to take this little journey with me.

My daughter has been in a relationship with a young man for about 3 years now. That is a long time when you consider they are just now seniors in high school. They do music and worship together in the local church and are fast approaching a crossroads in their life together. Graduation and college have a way of either separating or uniting young couples in dramatic fashion.

From early in her life I tried to instill in my daughter what is it she should expect from a man in a relationship. Respect, preference, empathy, and a desire to experience time together that is greater than a desire for things or appearances. Along the way the image of opening the door for a lady was passed on as an expectation for any man that would vie for her affection. Now I know there are people who would call it old fashioned and even some who call it sexist and oppressive, but it is neither of those things.

The deed is a simple outward expression of a man choosing for the person he loves to be given preference. Not because she is lacking in some way, but because he is placing her needs and wants ahead of her own. I would think that anyone loved by anyone else would make the same effort.

How he loves…

So here he was, this boy who was becoming a man of God, honoring my daughter by opening the car door for her. She went to her door and stood and waited for him as he came around to open it for her. They smiled and enjoyed the whole scene as if he had never done it before…. I know for a fact he always gets her door, daddy’s are always watching.

This, after I just hurried ahead of my wife and sat down and started the car before she even got in.

I know, it sends a bad message right? I look like a stooge, like I don’t care and like I have lost the chivalrous love we once shared. But that is far from true.

You see its summer in Oklahoma and even at 9 o’clock at night it is over 100 degrees in that car. After years of marriage and having open conversations with my wife, I know more deeply what she wants. She likes it when I open the door for her, and I do when its cooler out. However; in this situation she would rather I get in, start the car, and get the air conditioning rolling as quickly as possible.

It’s putting her needs ahead of mine that shows love, not the gesture used to do it.

I love my wife more deeply and clearly than I did when we first met and I insisted on holding the door. She feels more loved when I give her what she wants verses what I think she wants.

God’s love is just as individual as chivalry

It really is the same with God’s love for us. He meets us where we are. Even when where we are changes from day to day. In John 4 he met the Samaritan woman at the well, In John 5 he met the lame man at the pool, In Daniel he met the three Hebrew children in a fiery furnace, He met Mary at the empty tomb, and the disciples in the upper room.

Just as holding the door for my daughter is what she needs, starting the air conditioning is what my wife needs. God knows that some of us need peace today and some need motivation. That some need comfort and some need to be made uncomfortable, that some need forgiveness and some need cleansing, some need empathy and some discipline, some need His direction and some need the freedom His grace gives to us. He meets us where we are.

Luke 15:20 “And he arose and went to his father. But while he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.”

Wherever you are today, just turn to God, and say “Father I want to come home”, and He will run to you. Let He that knows you the best show you love in the way that speaks it best to you.