maidens, miracles, & love

"suppose there was a king who loved a humble maiden. the king was like no other king. every statesman trembled before his power. no one dared breathe a word against him, for he had the power to crush all opponents. and yet this mighty king was melted by love for a humble maiden.
how could he declare his love for her? in an odd sort of way, his very kingliness tied his hands. if he brought her to the palace and crowned her head with jewels and clothed her body with royal robes, she would surely not resist him- no one dared resist him. but would she love him?
she would say she loved him, of course, but would she truly? or would she live with him in fear, nursing a private grief for the life she had left behind? would she be happy at his side? how could he know?
if he rode to her forest cottage with an armed escort waving bright banners that too, would overwhelm her. he did not want a cringing subject. he wanted a lover, an equal. he was a king and she was a humble maiden and he long to let shared love cross over the gulf between them. for it is only in love that the unequal can be made equal.
the king, convinced he could not elevate the maiden without crushing her freedom, resolved to descend. he clothed himself as a beggar and approached her cottage incognito, with a worn cloak fluttering loosly about him. it was no mere disguise, but a new identity he took on.
he renounced the throne to win her hand."
- Soren Kierkegaard

a lot of times we just wish God would give us a miracle. if He would just show Himself in some miraculous way, then we could believe in Him. but God does not want us to want miracles. He wants us to want Him. He doesn't want gold diggers, He wants a family. He wants for us to be His beautiful bride, and to not reduce ourselves to prostitutes who only put-out for the profit.

"Jesus, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage, so he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. and being found in appearance as a human being, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death- even death on a cross!" Philippians 2:6-8

"Jesus was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. yet to all who received him, to all those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God." John 1:10-12