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It amazes me that we still believe in love.
I don’t know if, as people, we are hopeless optimists, or what it is. But, you would think with the divorce rate over 50 per cent and it being so easy to find someone in an unhappy relationship (married or not) or with a broken heart we would give it up as loss and go on with less painful pursuits.
But we don’t, and the ancient wisdom says we don’t because we are “made in the image of God” (Gen. 1:26) and He is love (1 John 4:16) and therefore we behave true to our design. We love.
We use the word in many different and varied ways — we love coffee, we love the mountains and we loved that vacation we had two years ago. But more visceral is the need to give love and the need to receive love.
Not only is this need encoded in our design, but it’s also fundamental to our nature.
Author, pastor and president of Ambrose University in Calgary, Dr. Gordon T. Smith, writes, “Nothing is so fundamental to the (human) journey as knowing and feeling that we are loved.”
The sad fact is many feel unloved and in attempting to meet this fundamental need incur great pain in their lives. Yet we try again, hoping to somehow know, feel, experience or see love.
John, “the disciple whom Jesus loved” wrote “God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love – not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.” (1 John 4:9-10, NLT)
Our sin places us at grave odds with God, but though we are at war with Him, He has been loving us, and calling us back into friendship with Himself. It’s crazy. It’s almost unbelievable to us. But then again, something inside of us wants to risk loving, even when it can mean the potential for great hurt. Apparently, we come by this propensity honestly enough. Our need or even desperation for love is warranted. We are in grave peril if we reject God’s love, but it’s available and the invitation to receive it is real.
As we continue to celebrate Valentines Day, and think about the remarkable reality of love — giving and receiving — would you consider the nature of your need, the fabric of your design, and the invitation to know and feel love from God, through Jesus?
Rev. Terry Lee is the lead pastor to Okotoks Alliance Church, just north of town on 2A.
