The Search

 Long ago the LORD said to Israel: “I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself." Jeremiah 31:3

It's a new year, and we'll be bombarded with all kinds of new year related advertising. Two of the most prevalent will be directed at either finally getting in shape or finally finding love. It's the latter that I want to focus on today.

It seems impossible that anyone, particularly a single person, is not made very aware of all the various "dating sites" that are available, and there seems to be a never ending line of people seeking to make use of them. "Find Love In 2024," will be a rallying cry for many. It's a powerful appeal because everyone wants to find love. Everyone wants to be loved. We can be desperate in our search. We can also leave a long trail of destruction in that search. Destruction of ourselves and of those we've encountered along the way. I know. I was part of the desperate crowd. You may have been as well. Maybe you still are.

We were created for love, to love and be loved. Our human ancestors Adam and Eve knew that love. Perfect love in their Creator God. Then, through their disobedience, sin entered into the world and their relationship with Him and His love was severed. He didn't cease to love us, we lost the ability to truly love Him. Yet their hunger for that love remained. Sin caused them, and in turn, us, to seek to find that love in a multitude of counterfeit ways. More than that, our understanding of love became severely flawed. We desperately wanted love, but we didn't know what real love was, and neither did we know how to give or receive it. We are wounded people looking for a love that can only be realized in Him. As a result, we end up wounding each other. Wounded parents wound their children. Wounded husbands and wives wound each other. And that which we were created for seems further and further away from our ever realizing. And it can go on even after entering into a saving relationship with Christ. He has to teach us how to love. How to not only give love, but receive it. I know, because He had to do so with me.

We live in a fallen world and that fallenness touches every aspect of our lives, especially in our relationships. We can not escape the wounding that comes with this broken world. In our families, marriages, and every kind of intimate relationship. We keep asking fallen, broken people to give us what only He can. The preponderance of broken marriages and relationships is proof of this. We always think the next one will be THE ONE, but it rarely, if ever is. And we will live in this cycle of defeat and destruction until the reality of Jeremiah becomes our reality. It took many years, but it finally did for me. I pray it will for you as well.

For years I looked for a person to give me what only He could give me. Perfect, unconditional love. Love that met me where I was, accepted me as I was, and filled that void that I kept asking people to fill but never could. Love, His love, that captured my heart, mind, emotions, and spirit. Love that was so full, so rich, so satisfying, that even if there was no particular person in my life, I was still living with a deep sense of fulfillment and satisfaction. Like the old Keith Green song goes, His love broke through. I had finally and fully found love. His love. And nothing was ever the same again. He filled the void. He was, is, the only One who can.

I don't know if this registers with you, but I'll close with this story told by James Robison about his wife Betty. She had always struggled to believe God loved her. As a result, she felt crippled emotionally and spiritually. She sought Him, but the emptiness continued. Finally, one night as she and James lay in bed, he reading and she praying, she began to softly weep. Alarmed, James asked what was wrong. She simply replied, "He's loving me." She was captured by His love. She was made whole. So too, in ways I can't explain, was I, and healing and wholeness have been the result. Healing and wholeness that continue to take place in me. I no longer look for love, I simply receive it. His love. Beloved, may it be so for you this year, this week, this day. Embrace His love, for He surely reaches to you in order to give it.

Blessings,
Pastor O