Just recently, a friend and I went to Makati to do some errands. While strolling around Glorietta mall my friend’s attention got caught by a heart shaped locket necklace that was being sold at the mall’s tiangge or stalls. She said that she has been planning to buy one so she asked the price of the locket and asked the sales lady how does she put her own picture in the locket. The sales lady’s response was a little bit unrelated; nevertheless, it surprised us.

This is what she said:

“Kung hindi ka pa sigurado i-tape mo muna. Pagsigurado ka na i-mighty bond mo na.“

(if you are not yet sure of the person temporarily tape it first, but if you are sure then permanently glue it.)

Her answer baffled us.

But looking at it closely, her statement reflects our society’s standards on relationships. We tend to go for short-time, temporary, for-the-moment, easily replaceable/removable and sometimes lust, looks and popularity-based relationships.

Seriously? Do I want to be JUST taped around some person’s life and heart? Check me out first if I’m not good enough  then remove me or if the tape losses its ‘stickiness’, then its all over?

The statement (honestly made me laugh) reflects the lack or commitment. I am no relationship guru but one thing I do know for a fact (and learned) that relationship is commitment. Love is commitment.

Then I thought of God and how committed he was and is in loving me. He wrote my name in the palm of His hands, know the number of my hair (I guess even the falling ones), I’m the apple of His eyes. How He constantly looked on how I was being formed in the womb and in every developmental milestone I got through. How He gave His son for us. He was committed and I know that I wasn’t taped in His heart.

Then I looked into my heart. Come to think of it, how constantly we tape God in our hearts, how we ‘commit to Him’ if we need Him or how suddenly our eyes and ears get selective in hearing and reading the Word of God that we omit the “IF” in His promises. How deceitful and dirty our hearts are that we declare that we believe in Him but don’t follow Him. Yet, in the midst of it all, He was committed and He never gave up on us.

How can you love anyone with out loving God first? To be committed to Him in a unique, un-“religious”, undivided, delighted, top-of-the-priority way?

What can I do to Honor God?

Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.  -psalm 37:4 (NIV)

As I read the Word of God I get to see a glimpse of His heart. A Heart shaped locket. On one side is our picture. Each and everyone of us, glued, engraved, laminated, welded, permanently stuck in the frame. In the other side, His son crucified on the cross for our sins. It broke my heart as I look at my heart.

How about you? What is in your heart?

God desires to have a real relationship with you. If “relationship with God” sounds nearer as jargon to awkwardly weird to you, chances are God is trying to tell you that He wants you to know Him more. But God is a God of second chances. Always full of Grace

“If anyone loves me, he will carefully keep my word and my Father will love him—we’ll move right into the neighborhood! Not loving me means not keeping my words. The message you are hearing isn’t mine. It’s the message of the Father who sent me.” – John 14:23-24 (message)

PS: she didn’t buy the locket hehehe