Commitment sometimes cold and sometimes warm When I was first starting out on this journey, I had the

e idea that commitment (to the Lord, to loved ones, to neighbors, to enemies) was a teeth gritting kinda thing. I looked at obvious scriptural examples of this and aspired to such strength (of jawsmile): The beautiful Servant Song in Isaiah 50.4ff about my lord Jesus: The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward. The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me. It is the Lord God who helps me; who will declare me guilty? All of them will wear out like a garment; the moth will eat them up. And I saw that face like flint in motion in Luke 9.51: And it came about, when the days were approaching for His ascension, that He resolutely set His face to go to Jerusalem And this was how I understood the description of the righteous walker-withGod in Ps 15.4bc: who keeps his oath even when it hurts Now, at that time in my life, this face like flint position would have been associated with cold, teeth-clenching commitment. Tenacity-withoutemotion, pure hard-headedness (smile), firm-jaw kinda stuff. Of course, all of this body language was typically evocative of anger, disagreement, closedness, the early Clint Eastwood (smile), etc. And so, I understood that to be almost a cold-blooded commitment. Absolutely necessary, and not something bad (by any means!), but nevertheless something in semi-contrast to warmth and emotion. The transition from cold-only commitment to sometimes-cold, sometimeswarm came through the intermediation of love. The biblical/theological materials I was reading at the time emphasized that love was a commitment and not a feeling (in response to the 60s rhetoric to the contrary, I suspect).

This made Gods love for me a matter of will (instead of emotion) and a matter of firm jaw commitment to me. As important and liberating as this was to me (and still is, believe me!) at the time, there was still something missing in it. It made Gods love seemingly different from the kind of human love I saw around me: warm, laughing, effusive, tearful, huggy, empathetic. And eventuallyafter the birth my precious kidletsI experienced that love/commitment as something of sheer delight in another human being (although in miniaturesmile) along with abject and total commitment to them. There were times of deep exhaustion when my commitment to do something for a little one was cold, but only because there was nothing left to fuel the warmth. And there were times when the commitment was tough love in tone: cold looking, but filled with warmth and pain. And there were times when the commitment was fiery, jovial, excitedas when I made a commitment to do something special for/with them! And, then it was only a short step until Gods love became filled with this type of warmth. His word talked about His delight in the righteous, His outstretched arm for His enslaved people, His tough love (weeping through Moses and the prophetsO, would that they had a heart, all day long have I stretched out my hands to you), His weeping at a tomb, and His being a Man of Sorrows. And so Gods love/commitment became all of the above: firm, cold, fierce, fiery, fluid, solid, gentle, laughing, tough, forgiving. And my love/commitment began to thaw out a little too(smile)and began to have a wider range of expressions, form, and tone.