I Want You to Want Me

You know that 1977 song by Cheap Trick.

"I want you to want me
I need you to need me
I'd love you to love me
I'm beggin you to beg me"

I am an attention whore. I like it and I crave it. I love being the center of attention and not only that but the center of affection. I want to approval of everybody in the room. My public life, my words, my actions often center on this desire. Every person is the object of my desire.

Except God.

At least at the beginning.

See we are all like this. As sinful man we run far and fast from God. We don't want him, we want ourselves. We don't want his plan, we want ours. We want pleasure NOW, not pleasure later. We never really seek God's attention. We don't try to claw our way up to heaven begging for God to take notice of us. We beg and claw and fight and strive for the attention of those who are around us.

"Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?” Ruth 2:10

Ruth asks Boaz this question after he pledges his protection over her in his fields and offers her provision of drink if she is thirsty. She does this while on her knees, face to the ground, recognizing that no Israelite in his right mind should offer this blessing to a former oppressor, a foreigner and a stranger.

I was struck by this question. In context, Ruth had done plenty worth noting, namely her loyatly to her mother in law, and her good reputation preceded her. However, I read those words and I can't help but think,

"Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a sinner?"

When God called me out of darkness, I was not seeking him. I was rebelling against everything I had learned about him, making my own path, choosing what to please myself with. Yet he was the one not content to let me finish my hell bound race. He was the one who poured his spirit into my life. He was the one who drew me back to himself so that I could have eternal life instead of eternal death. He was the one who sent his son to die so that I could be saved.

"God, why do you bother?" I often ask that question in my struggle with sin. "Why do you convict me? Why do you work to bring me back? Why do you exert your will? Why do you never give up? Why do you want me?"

His answer is actually a little bit like that song.

"I want you to want me
but I don't need you to need me
I'd just love you to love me
but I won't beg you to beg me.

Didn't I, didn't I didn't I see you crying?
Feelin all alone without a friend, I know you felt like dyin
Didn't I didn't I didn't I see you crying?"

He did indeed. And he came, not because I begged him, but because he saw me, before the beginning of time, and he loved me, not because of me, but because of who he is.

We find favor because he is favorable, not because we are. So we don't need to vie for God's attention. We don't need to impress him or claw over each other and compete to get his time or his blessing. We are free to experience his love and blessing and care knowing its not dependant upon us. We can rest in assurance. And the more we realize this, the more we drink of this water, the less thirsty we become for anything but God until what Jesus said to the woman at the well becomes absolutely true.

"whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again." John 4:14