As a young lady, I fell in love.
The crazy butterflies.
The first thoughts in the morning, the last thoughts at night.
When life seems to have a brand-new meaning.
Until, it was over.
Yes, I know. I was told there would be others. That the first break-up is the hardest. It didn’t matter what people said. I knew what I felt.
I bet you too remember the feelings of despair when those butterflies died, the thoughts disappeared and life seemed to have, well, little meaning.
God gave us many gifts. The three He mentions in I Corinthians 13 are faith, hope and love. He tells us, the greatest of these is love. If you’ve ever been through a break-up, you might just wonder what in the world He was thinking.
But He wasn’t limiting His definition to human love. Human love is magical and fantastic and ecstatically overwhelming. But human love is still, just between imperfect humans. Humans who inadvertently hurt or occasionally use careless words or practice selfishness.
The love God is describing in this famous passage is His love. To be loved no matter how unlovable I might act or look at the moment. Yet, I am still faithfully loved.
I didn’t earn it. I don’t deserve it or work for it but He freely and faithfully lavishly loves anyway.
This, this love, is the deepest desire of the human heart.
God created us. He knows our deepest desires and He meets them. He also worked to define love so we would understand what we are really looking for, what our heart’s end goal is. It’s not the world’s definition our souls yearn for.
While spouses will promise to love, honor and cherish one another, we are, after all, human. We will fail each other, even unintentionally. We will hurt each other, maybe not even be aware of it. We will never fully meet each other’s needs. And, unlike the world’s message, we were not actually meant to find completeness in one another.
That hole in our hearts can only be filled with God’s love. His love is always patient and kind. Not envious or boastful or conceited. It doesn’t act improperly or selfishly. Doesn’t provoke or record wrongs. It doesn’t ever find joy in unrighteousness and always rejoices with the truth. His loves always bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
He gave us a blueprint and an example how to model love. It’s not what we get but what we give. We need to be filled with His love, which will absolutely never fail, and in turn allow that love to flow through us to others.
We need to realize and accept that His love is what we are really looking for to complete us. If He chooses to gift us with another human for life, what a wonderful gift! But we need to keep that relationship in its proper place.
No one, no one, will ever love us like our Heavenly Father does.
And that fact should not disillusion us but encourage us to keep the right perspective on relationships. It also prompts us to realize what real love looks like and where we can find it defined and exemplified.
God does instruct us on how to love each other. It looks like how He loves us.
When we fail to love like Him, we need to realize it. Apologize. Rectify when possible. Ask Him for help to do better. Love is worth trying again. And again. And again.
We can love because He first loved us. (1John 4:19).
We can trust Him to teach us how to love.
We can trust in His definition and His example.
And even when our hearts are broken, and life lost the butterflies, and blissful thoughts, and the grandiose meaning, He’s there, holding the pieces of our broken hearts. And, He’ll help us to learn to trust again, because He is faithful, even when we are faithless.
He will never stop loving us. He offers the greatest gift of all: a forever love.
Prayer: Thank You Lord, for Your gift of love. How easy it is to misunderstand it, mis-define it, or mistaken other things for it. Please help me understand how You want me to live in love. To run to You and allow Your love to flow through me to others around me. Help me encourage healthy relationships and learn to treasure You most of all. Thank You for Your precious gift, in Jesus’ name, Amen.