During Sunday school this morning, Adam challenged us to fall in love with God, and that phrase all of the sudden struck me as the solution to the struggles in my life.  I had always heard the phrase, and I had even thrown it around myself.  But this morning, I gained a whole new perspective on what it meant to "fall in love with God."  

When I got home, I started to think about what that really meant.  To fall in love with God.  What does that take?  What am I going to have to give up or change in my life?  Well, when I think of the phrase "fall in love," I generally assume it refers to the feelings between 2 humans of the opposite sex.  So, with that picture in mind, what kind of relationship does that entail?  I would say that most people agree that a husband/wife relationship should be one of good communication, trust, sacrifice, love, patience, faithfulness, friendship, humility, and so much more.  As a Christian, I understand that a healthy marriage should reflect Christ's relationship with the church, and so we can liken falling in love with God to falling in love with another human being.  But we must be careful when using this comparison because we can't pull God down to an earthly level.  He is God, and nothing can change that.  He is the creator of the universe, the one who came to die for our sins, and no amount of human likeness we put on Him will ever change that fact.  He isn't human.  He is God.  

1 John 4:16 says that "God is love," and so I believe that unless we understand God (as well as we can in human terms), we will not understand love.  Ultimately, the epitome of love was exemplified in God becoming man and dying on the cross for the sins of the world, but this love is hard for us, as humans, to grasp because God didn't have to do that for us.  He wanted to, and that takes a selflessness that I know I don't understand.  So, because it's hard for us to understand this love, God gave us the metaphor of His relationship with the church being like that of a marriage.  But the picture of marriage here is a solid, dependable marriage, not the type of marriage we see in our society today.  It's like what I described above. 

Therefore, I think that falling in love with God has to do with applying the same attributes to our relationship with Him as we do a relationship involving a husband and wife.  We must have good communication (a solid prayer life), trust (in Him and His Word), sacrifice (in tithing, ministry, gifts, and service), love (for Him as well as others), patience (for His will and timing), faithfulness (to Him and Him alone), friendship (a combination of love, admiration, and respect), humility (admitting when we are wrong and recieving advice and peace when we mess up), and so much more.  I'm still not sure how to love like this, but I know if I ask God to help me, He's faithful and will reveal to me Himself ~ the ultimate example of love.

So, with all that being said, I want to issue the same challenge to you, fall in love with God.  Make Him your only focus.  You don't need anything else.