Who's Your Lover?

I'm having a great holiday weekend at one of my best friend's house. Erinann Moore is a fellow DTS student and such a wonderful friend and sister in Christ.

Anyway, today we went to see Catching Fire!!! It was amazing and I can't wait to see it again and read the books again! Since seeing this movie I just keep thinking about relationships and love. I can't help missing having a romantic interest in my life and that feeling of love. It can be such a blessing and a curse. As I was dwelling on these things I realized one of this world's major flaws. We revere earthly love. If you watch movies, read novels, or listen to music, the main defining theme is the importance of a romantic partner. It's the end all, be all. We idolize love. It is the reason for living and we long for love worth dying for. Many of us are looking for that one person, that one man or woman, who will complete us and fill this deep chasm we have in our souls.

This longing is not abnormal, in fact, it was placed there by God. The problem is that we are looking for love in all the wrong places. Love between a man and woman is a reflection of the love God has for us. Christ longs for his bride more than we can ever imagine. His love goes deeper and runs truer than anything we can experience until we meet our savior in the clouds. He wants to embrace us and whisper of His love for us. He wants me to know to the depth of my being how passionate He is for me. He covets your love. YOU! No matter what you have done to sin against Him, in spite of all your faults, perceived and otherwise. He will never betray or abandon us.

We are taught from infancy to search for that one boy or girl who will be the answer to these desires. Only to find hurt and imperfection when we were looking for a perfect love. See, the thing is, we can't hug God everyday. We can't talk to Him and audibly hear His voice answer back on a regular basis. So it's easy to tell ourselves that He isn't enough. He isn't available in the way we want our lover to be. So we keep looking to people we can hear, see, touch, and smell. We doubt His ability to meet our needs.

The fact of the matter is no one can meet our needs like Jesus. But he made Eve for a reason. Marriage, centered on Jesus, full of romance and respect, is one of the greatest gifts God has given us. It is important. But it can't satisfy us completely. This world is still changed because of sin. People cannot be everything, all the time, that we might want them to be. That's where the grace of God steps in. By His mercy we can have this small, beautiful shadow of His love through marriage.

While I will continue to pine, every so often, for this earthly love He designed, I will ultimately pursue this relationship which meets every need, every time.