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Sunday, June 9, 2013

Sloppy Wet Kiss



There is a powerful song performed by Kim Walker called "How He Loves Us". I heard it for the first time around five years ago and I was completely taken by how the music and lyrics portray the exhilarating, breath-taking reality that God loves us. It is still a very meaningful song to me and a fairly popular one among many Christians. However, there is one line in the song that has never quite sat right with me before.

The second verse ends, "...Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss / And my heart turns violently inside of my chest / I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way / He loves us, Oh how he loves us..."

When I heard "sloppy wet kiss" the only image that was brought to mind was adolescences who had not quite mastered the art of kissing. Any kiss I had experienced that could be described as "sloppy" and "wet" had not been enjoyable. Why would we use such an image to describe heaven meeting earth, God's love coming down to touch our hearts? If a kiss was being given from heaven to us, I can only assume it would not be sloppy or distasteful in any way! All of this changed in the last week.

I recently have been trying to teach my 11-month old daughter how to give kisses. For a few weeks I have been saying "kiss", and leaning in to kiss her forehead or cheek, hoping sometime the connection would be made and she would mimic this sign of affection back to me. And finally it happened. As she sat on my lap facing me, her chin was covered in drool and her mouth was wide open, but when I asked her for a kiss, she leaned her little face right into mine and planted her sloppy, wet kiss right on my lips! My heart filled to bursting with love and joy and pride and happiness as I received my first kiss from this dear little girl!

And almost right away I thought of this line from this song. I realized heaven is not the sloppy kisser, we are! Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss as we lean in to respond to God's invitation through grace. And when we get it for the first time, when we hear God's "Can I have a kiss?" and lean our messy, wet faces to kiss His, it is not uncomfortable or awkward. It is delightful! God's heart fills to bursting with a Father's love and He is so ecstatic at our return of His affection. He cheers and claps and swings us around in a big bear hug. When we become aware of His overwhelming love, that He is not evaluating, but delighting in us as we surrender to  Him, our hearts get rearranged. We cannot hold on to sorrow, regret, or our "if only's" because He loves us!

Oh how He loves us!


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