This time of year, we hear a lot about love. The stores are filled with pink teddy bears, heart-shaped boxes of chocolates, and bouquets of roses. Brightly colored Valentine’s Day cards stuff mailboxes and little boys pass notes, tentatively asking, “Will you be my Valentine?”
We all long for true love, love that will stand the test of time, love that still loves even when we are unlovely. We talk about it, sing about it, search for it. We make movies and write stories about it. But for so many in this world this search for love seems a hopeless quest.
Why is this? Why are so many lonely, even in a crowd? Why are so many desperately looking for love in bars, in chat rooms, at the theater, on internet porn sites? Why do so many turn to drugs, or sex, or suicide, trying to hide from the pain of living in a loveless world? Why do so many people fall out of love and fall into affairs or divorce? With all this talk about love around us how come so many of us feel so unloved?
The problem is we don’t understand love very well. We are looking for love in all the wrong places. True love isn’t found in brightly colored packages, Hallmark movies, or boxes of chocolates. It isn’t found on the Internet or in a one night fling. It is found in only one place – in the arms of God.
1 John 4:16, 17 says, “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. This is how love is made complete among us…” It is only in growing relationship with God we can experience true love and it is only then we can truly love others and be loved in return.
Loving God makes everything else real. It makes beautiful words sound better, sunsets seem brighter and kisses taste sweeter. Loving God gives purpose to our lives, meaning to our faith.
God’s love transforms us. Instead of craving attention or possessions we joyfully give our last penny to the poor or our very lives to the flames, not to gain heaven, but so others may know His love too.
Are you lonely this Valentine’s Day weekend? Do you long for a love you’ve never known? Do you long for a friend you can trust, someone you can share the most intimate details of your life with, someone who cares about your hurts and pains, your joys and sorrows? God is who you are searching for.
In Him you will find a love you never dreamed possible, a peace that passes all understanding, a purpose for your life. In Him you will find joy beyond reason, a love that never ends, a friend that never disappoints.
God’s love is everything you need and it makes everything you want possible. His love is yours today, right now. All you have to do is accept it. Why wait? Give Him your heart today and discover what true love really means.
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”