Your Love...

...is Extravagant. It means overgenerous...excessive. How incredibly extravagant God's love is for me...how overgenerous He is to me. Moving to the rhythm of His grace. One of my fave choruses. Photomom (do you like your new name??) and I were discussing this chorus the other day...which is the prompt for this blog.

"Your love is extravagant...Your friendship it is intimate.
I feel I'm moving to the rhythm of Your grace
Your fragrance is intoxicating in the secret place,
Cause Your love is extravagant
Spread wide in the arms of Christ is a love that covers sin.
No greater love have I ever known; You considered me Your friend...
You captured my heart again."

When I was the Music Ministry advisor at CLS, we did this song several times. We did it before I took that position. One day someone said to me that they really hated that song because it was so sexually suggestive. We were asked not to do the song again. We didn't. (Well...until our sound guy moved away and he picked it when he lead for his last chapel. Oops.) Then we never did it again. Because I was obedient. Period.

I am no longer in that position and this is still a chorus that moves me. It speaks to me. It's truthful. It's real. It's simple. God is all things to man. To woman. I do not see or hear the complete sexual connotation here. Our friendship with Christ is supposed to be more intimate than any other relationship in our lives. He is the Bride Groom...we our his Bride for crying out loud. That should bring you great joy. Pleasure...and not in a gutter-minded kind of way. We're talking about GOD! The Husband to the widow, the Father to the father-less. It's a promise. It's HIS promise. I want to be captured by Him. To be loved by Him. To be filled with Him.
My secret place is reserved only for Christ. His Holy Spirit. My Father in heaven. My closet...where I find peace and strength to meet each and everyday.

Why is the thought of it so taboo?? The choice of words? The way they are strung together? My mind is open here, people. Explain it to me. Why is the thought of intimacy reserved for physical pleasure alone? To know me intimately does not mean I have been physical with you. It means you know me...my heart...my mind...my deepest desires for my life, my family. You know my secrets. And no one can know me as Christ knows me. Ever. In any way. He knit me together in my mother's womb...how much more secret can you get than that? And if every word in God's Word is breathed by Him...then he wrote The Song of Songs. God IS a physical God. My God brings me joy...pleasure...complete and meant for me. Don't even get me started on the Fragrance of God! The Fragrance of the Holy Spirit. Intoxicating. Shouldn't it be??? Exciting...invigorating... stimulating...exhillarating...fascinating... enthralling. That's what our worship should be TO HIM! A sweet fragrance floating heavenward for His pleasure.

So, before we tear down a chorus because it doesn't meet the standards created by a few people, listen to it. Absorb it. Allow it to speak to you. If you don't like it...so be it. No biggie. I am a defender, right or wrong, to the writing of music that causes you to think...moves you to take some kind of action. Causes a stirring of the pot, so to speak. This is one that gets you discussing the awesome love of the Creator for His Creation and what that love means. I think the writer did his job quite well. The singer (Casting Crowns is the one I listen to) expresses it with feeling.

We will do this song in our little church in the Grove. Someday. Soon.