Stand Up For Your Love!

Bono told me the other day to stand up for my love.

 

 

He told me to "Stand up in this dizzy world where a love sick eye can steal the view," and he asked if I can stand up to "Beauty, dictator of the heart," while also mentioning faith, hope, and love just like the apostle Paul does in 1 Corinthians 13.
 

After this, Bono goes on to say something really interesting. He goes on to say, "But while I'm getting over certainty, stop helping God across the road like a little old lady."
 

And that really caught my ear, you know?
 

It caught my ear and I started thinking a lot about it and obviously I can't know for sure what Bono intended when he said that, but maybe what he's saying is something like, "yeah, definitely - faith, hope, and love are the most important things to stand up for" (and I think Bono would agree with Paul on the assertion that the most important virtue of them all is love (1 Corinthians 13:13)), but then, right after that, he's like: "but in the certainty of doing so, please 'Stop helping God across the road like (you would) a little old lady.'"  

 

 

Awesome movie clip of an old woman crossing a street

 

...That's super interesting to me because I would like to say that standing up for my faith, hope, and love in God is something that I'm really set on - it's something that I really consider to be the most important things to stand up for in life!... but then, in the midst of it, it's kind of like Bono is trying to keep me honest by saying that while I'm at it, I better not do it as if I were trying to help Him or something... it's like, "nah, man - God is extremely powerful and it's completely nuts for us to think that He needs our help in making Himself known," you know what  I mean?

 

I think that God definitely wants us to go and make disciples because He told us to do that (Matt. 28: 19-20); I think He definitely wants us to be prepared to preach the Word in season and out of season, because He encouraged Timothy to do that through the inspired writer Paul (2 Timothy 4:2); and I think He definitely wants us to be His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth, because He actually told us that we would as a statement of fact (Acts 1:6).    
 

But at the same time, I don't think God ever needs our help as if He were somehow incapable of showing the world who He is on his own, or that He somehow needs us to do this favor for Him because He's getting old and tired and all the commotion in the world is making Him overwhelmed so He needs people like us who have all the right answers and all the right cliche catch phrases like "God is my co-pilot," or "God is my home-boy," or something absurd like that to save the world.  
 

Give me a break, man - do you really think God would even want to be those things?
 

I think God wants us to tell others about Himself only because we love Him (2 Corinthians 5:14-15), and only because it would be our greatest joy to do so (1 John 1:4), and only because our satisfaction in knowing Him is only augmented the more we share Him with others (Philippians 1:4b-5, 4:1).

It's interesting because Bono then goes on to say, "I got to stand up to ego but my ego is not really the enemy. It's like a small child crossing an eight lane highway, on a voyage of discovery."

And man alive, do I ever feel like that at times! Sometimes it's like I can be so stubborn in pursuing things that occasionally I bet people start to wonder if I'm doing it just because I'm prideful (and I suppose that that vice might seep into it occasionally), but in my mind it's really just that I'm trying to accomplish what I set out to do because I'm inspired to do so, and because I love it. That's all.

And then the song says this:

"Stand up to rock stars, Napoleon is in high heels. Josephine be careful of small men with big ideas."

That's funny because Bono is a rock star and because Napoleon was short but he had big ideas and because Josephine was his girl and together they sure had one heck of a love story.

Bono is a guy with big ideas, he's the kind of guy that'll go crazy if he can't work towards them. In another one of his songs from this same album after he remarks that "every generation gets a chance to change the world," he asks, "Is it true that perfect love drives out all fear?" (See 1 John 4:16-21). This question is then coupled along with the surprising statement: "The right to be ridiculous is something I hold dear."

The truth is that love is often the most ridiculous way. It's often "not a hill, it's a mountain," but it's the best way, it's the perfect way, and it's the eternal way (1 Corinthians 13).

It's so cool then how he ends this song. He's like:

Let's shout until the darkness squeezes sparks of light!

Freak yeah. haha.


Picture Cited: http://www.neatorama.com/2012/03/23/the-10-greatest-love-affairs-in-history/