Will You Be Mine?
By Steve Bietz
Burke County
I know it isn’t a church holiday, but when we were kids, giving each other those little red-and-pink cards on Valentine’s Day was a favorite part of the school year. If my memory serves me correctly, and it seems to do that less and less, from 1st grade to the 5th grade we gave everyone in our class, plus our teacher, a Valentine’s Day card. Now the cards I recall would not win a Hallmark greeting card contest for their beautiful poetry. My mom would allow me to buy a box of 25 cards and envelopes.
That evening I would then scatter them on the kitchen table as I made the tough decisions on which of my friends would get a certain card. I would read their simple messages, for example: “Just For The Record Valentine, You’re The Music In My Heart. Will You Be Mine.” And with those words, there would be an illustration of a boy and girl listening to a record on a record player. Yes, just typing the words record player makes me feel old. Then the next day at school during our Valentine’s Day party, we would pass out our enveloped cards to everyone in our class. Now if there was a special girl that I was friends with, I would include candy with the card. And of course, the only candy that would suffice for Valentine’s Day, were those candy hearts with short messages on them like, Hug Me, or Luv You, or Crazy 4 You, or Be Mine. The message had to be short and sweet on such a small heart. The stamped words were not even always straight or centered on the hearts.
I was in college when I first spotted a young lady on campus. I would ask her to go out with me on a date. I took her to a restaurant in town where we began to get to know each other. And that date would eventually lead me to the place where I popped the question, Will You Be Mine. And for 42 years and counting, we have belonged to each other.
It’s the call of the chosen, isn’t it? “Will you be Mine?” asks the God of the universe, who for millennia now has been trying to win back the hearts of a runaway and rebel race. “Will you be Mine?” It’s as if all the children God already has around the dinner table in heaven aren’t enough–as if He’ll never really be truly happy and content until we say “Yes” and come and join Him too. “Will you be Mine?”
We read in John 3:16 the greatest Valentine card words this world has ever received. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” I can not begin to explain the way of Love divine and the compelling passion that drives a God from His great white throne to our dark, fallen earth, for what? That we might be granted to scream at the top of our lungs, “We have no king but Caesar?” And with our ugly refrain repeating inside of Him, this rejected God stumbles on to the place of execution. And as they stretch out His naked frame and pin Him to that cross, with every thud of the mallet upon those nails the question He came to earth to ask is hammered out. “Will you be Mine?” “Will you be Mine?” “Will you be Mine?”
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Steve Bietz is the pastor at Morganton Seventh Day Adventist Church. You can read more good Christian news from Pastor Steve Bietz HERE.
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