Let’s talk about affection.
People talk about being very affectionate whether it be in their romantic relationships, their friendships or with people in general. This affection can be denoted by the gentle touch a woman will assail on a man’s wrist to “check the time”, the way a man caresses the face of a woman he adores, or the wonderful way that someone can, in the words of one of my favorite artists Erykah Badu, “walk up behind me and kiss me on my neck and breathe on my neck”. It’s the way you hold hands with someone you like and even how you hold hands when we are all gathered together in prayer. It’s the hug shared between friends. The holy kiss shared between the saints. The way when you rub someone’s back or just stay very close to them when you sense they are in need of comfort. It’s even in the way you look at a person, your body language toward them. It’s in the things you say and the things you don’t. Affection, between people, is about the use of our bodies and our selves to delicately communicate our like or love for a person, be it platonic or romantic. But between us and God, what does affection look like? Like really? What does it look like when God has won our affection?
I pondered this as I was listening to #12 in the countdown to A Love Supreme Day. “You’ve Won My Affection” by Champions for Christ has always been one of my favorite songs because it is so intimate. It’s more telling than the touch between two earthly beings. It’s suggests and necessitates the opening of our hearts so that we may communicate with God spirit to spirit. The song says:
“You’ve won my affection. You’ve captured my heart. You have my devotion. My worship is yours.”
Then they go on to repeat:
“Now I am yours, completely yours, forever.”
There is not a time when I listen to this song and I don’t get caught up in thinking about how awesome it is to have and know the God who welcomes my affection. My good, sometimes awkward, always pure affection. I’m not the master of being affectionate with people, and there are many people’s model of affection I’d love to imitate, but I take comfort in knowing that I have countless and everlasting opportunities to perfect being affectionate with a God who will never deem my affection imperfect or awkward because our affection is spirit to spirit affection. Because of this, I am thankful to say, on this day, unashamed, that the God of all creation has won my affection, captured my heart, you have my devotion, and now I am His, completely His, forever.
Note: There’s no video accompanying this post. As I was writing this, I wondered if it was getting too long particularly because I knew I still needed to embed the video. I didn’t search for the video until after I finished writing this post and that’s when I found that the version I am looking for, from Champions for Christ, doesn’t exist on YouTube. So, I guess God had His way on this one.
