No matter how awesome and unconditional a dog's love is for his owner it can't compare to the love of a human. Humans can empathize, love, give support, pray over you. They have a whole world of other people to choose to love so when they love you its a precious thing. You know it was a CHOICE. Sometimes we don't understand why we love someone we just know that feeling is there.
What makes a human's love so much better than a pets? Its the risk. Its knowing that a person looked at you and CHOSE to love you. This Christmas I was sitting by my niece at dinner when she hugged my arm and said "I love you!" It melted my heart. It was the coolest feeling ever. No one made her say it. It was a spontaneous thing, like she was just overcome and had to get it our. I knew it was genuine. She knows other people and yet she chooses to love me.
Think about the movie Stepford Wives. The husbands have their wives' brains removed and turned into perfectly compliant wives. The new wives look perfect, always have dinner hot and ready, are ready and willing to hop into bed whenever the husbands want. But is that love? The wives can't chose to love their husbands anymore. The husbands never have to risk losing their wives. I would never want a husband that is forced to do my will without the option to choose to love me. I don't want a shotgun husband. If love isn't chosen then what worth does it have?What does this have to do with God?
This is why we were made! God made us to have a community of people to love. Its the reason He put the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. He didn't put it there to try to trick us. The really great thing that God gave us, the thing that separates us from the animals, is the ability to make decisions, to choose. What good is the ability to choose to love someone if you don't give them an opportunity to say no?
If I have a teenager and I tell them that I trust them but I never let them out of my sight I'm not really giving them an opportunity to be trustworthy. I need to let them leave so they can choose to come home safely.
God could have made us like a dog. He could have given us the capacity to show love but only given us the option to hang out with him getting food and a place to sleep. He could have programed us to love just Him and never given us a different choice. But is that really love?
Love means giving worth to another, possibly at your own expense. God, giving us the opportunity to walk away from Him, made a huge sacrifice. If you knew your child would grow up and betray you would you still have children? He knew we would betray Him. He knew He would have to send Jesus down to get the crap beaten out of him and yet he still made us! He knew we would break His heart and yet He still made us. He knew we would choose to side with the enemy and yet He still gave us choice.
That's how much he loves us and wants to be with us! He was willing to endure all that heartache so He can be with us now and forever in Super Heaven. If he had just wanted a sounding board, someone to sit with at dinner he could have made us just another talking animal or a robot. We could have demonstrated loving behaviors but it wouldn't be LOVE. Real love is chosen.
