Christ, the Most Hopeless Romantic

I wrote this as a Facebook note over a year ago and wanted to share it on here in hopes that someone would read it and be encouraged. :)

Do you ever get an idea in your head that will not go away, lingers in your consciousness, and demands to express itself? I sometimes do and the idea behind this is one of those things.

Often when I am in church or hearing or thinking about God/Christ and our relationship to the world, I can't help thinking that Christ's view of us is somewhat of a hopeless romantic's view. I look around and see he seems to have much more faith in us than is justified; his hopes for us seem so hopeful as to be hopeless, he thinks we can move mountains when we cannot move a molehill, and says we would be known by our love when we cannot even love ourselves. Think about it, God has so much faith in us that he made us his ambassadors to the world, Christ prayed for us all to be united as one as he and his Father are one, said we would be known by our love, and told us to be perfect as he and his holy Father are perfect. Pretty ridiculous isn't it? Talk about setting yourself up for a shattered dream and a misplaced hope. What an utterly hopeless romantic, rose-colored glasses wearing, delusional head-in-the-clouds dreamer that guy, Jesus, is.

Wait a minute, who thought we were worth laying down their life for? Who gave up being being an infinite being to be contained in a fleshly body so he could reach out and touch us? Who knows us better than anyone? Christ. Even knowing all he knows or maybe even because he knows all he does, he has faith in us and hope for us. He believes we can be light, salt, and love to the world. He believes that by our actions people can see God. What a horrifying and “awe-full” thought, what a responsibility and honor, what a testimony of faith towards us. But, after all, doesn't the Bible say we are made in God's image and that God is love, so are we not also love? Christ's hope is not misplaced, for God made us in his image and we are clothed in Christ. I think we have a lot more potential...if we could just get over thinking of ourselves as wretched and believe in each other and ourselves as Christ believes in us, who knows, we might even be able to change the world.