Searching for Love

I coached myself saying, “If I make this basket then she loves me.” After the ball slammed against the rim and bounced to the asphalt I said, “Ok, the best out of 10”. Just like when I was a teenager, every one of us is in search for love. Experts say more than 2 billion minutes a month are logged online by people searching for love. Additionally, many of the top songs on the Billboard Charts deal with love and the most successful movies each year always feature a romance between the leading man and woman.

Where does this universal desire for love come from? Observe the myriad of relationships around us. From birth, a baby needs the love of a father and mother. As a child grows, they develop friendships often finding a best friend. Then when our son or daughter enters into middle and high school they discover “boys” and “girls”. This begins their search for that special guy or gal.

In most cases, whether we are young or old, our search for love is pretty one sided. It is more about our needs and our dreams than the other persons’. Even so, we can still manage to find someone and experience true love . . . at least for a moment. But then disillusionment shows its heart-breaking face and we find ourselves standing speechless as our dreams for true love fall to the floor shattering into thousands of pieces. When emptiness, disillusionment and shattered dreams become the symbols of our search for love it is because we have missed the mark.

God our Creator placed the desire for love within us. Why? To drive us home. In other words, to drive us back to Himself. When we try to find perfect love anywhere else we miss the mark. It is written that “love is from God” (1 John 4:7) because “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Ultimately, it is not the perfect man or woman we are searching for it is God. Mistakenly however, we exchange the pursuit of something heavenly for something earthly, something eternal for something temporal.

True love ultimately finds its fulfillment in knowing God. He embodies all that the human heart, soul and mind longs for. When we find God and follow Him we find love. May God through His Son, Jesus Christ, be your hope for today.

The Value of Life

"Will you pray for us? My wife and I wish to have children.” Several years ago I went on a mission trip to India and heard this request many times as I ministered among the people. They wanted to exhaust all means in trying to have a family. It made a deep impact on me. The Scriptures say, “Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward.” (Psalm 127:3)

This experience hammered home the value of life. We see it everywhere in our world. Young couples facing the inability to have children, trying to save the life of an unborn child when there are complications or when a little boy or girl has a tragic accident or a serious health problem. There are no mountains high enough, no seas deep enough and no dangers terrifying enough to make us give up.

The value of life. We also see it in our grief when a life is lost. A soldier having life-long nightmares of lives he has taken in defense of our country. A parent’s heartache because of their child who was taken in a tragedy like the Sandy Hook shooting. The secret and silent tears of an abortion.

We were made to save life and value it. God our Creator made human beings and called them “good”. He then commissioned us to have families and fill the earth. Life is part of His plan. When we follow it there is joy and peace.

When life is unfairly taken or destroyed it only brings pain and suffering. This is part of the terrible curse of sin in our world. It falls on the just and unjust alike. There is a sense of mystery to it that no words of eloquence could ever satisfy.

Let us do three things today. First, we must give ourselves permission and time to grieve loss. Because we value life, naturally we grieve when life is taken away. Second, let us never go against God’s plan. Nothing good will come upon a person or nation that does not uphold the value of life. Third, let us agree that everyone is valuable, from the disabled child to the beautiful movie star. So precious is life, that God sent His only Son, Jesus. He came to save us from the greatest evil that still is yet to come upon our world. May we receive Jesus and make Him our hope for today.

The Light of Christmas

"Jobless, Inflation, Poverty, Recession”, then “Sirens wail in Tel Aviv, Gaza rockets hit suburbs”. This is what I read at the top of my screen when I went to an Internet news website. I thought to myself, “What is happening?” The headlines communicated the larger story of the dark and perilous times America and the world is facing. Our world needs hope!

Centuries ago, on the eve of history’s first Christmas the world was also in perilous times. Rome was the world’s superpower. They were a dictatorship whose government was immoral and cruel. For over 300 years the Jewish people lay under the foot of Roman rule. Day after day they longed to be free from this heartless empire. They needed hope. On the original Christmas Day the dawn of a new era had finally come. Hope arrived.

A young Jewish couple, Joseph and Mary, gave birth to their newborn son, Jesus. It was foretold this child would become the hope of the world. As the years passed and the boy became a man He lived out His destiny. At age 30 He began a public speaking ministry drawing crowds in the thousands. He coupled that with supernatural works of miraculous healings, displayed power over demons and even tamed the fury of nature. Jesus said of Himself, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). Indeed, His powerful light sliced through the curtain of darkness covering the world’s stage bringing hope to many.

However, the public eventually turned against Jesus. Why? His light brought hope, but it also exposed things. It exposed liars, cheats and the immoral lives of all rank and file in society. He lovingly called them to turn from their darkness and follow Him. Instead, they said “Enough!” Jesus once said, “The light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness because their deeds were evil” (John 3:10). And that is what happened. Soon, the hands of the crowds were dripping with Jesus’ blood when they murdered Him. For three days He lay dead. Then on the third day they discovered they could not keep hope in the grave.

Jesus overcame the darkness once and for all being raised from the dead. He was and still is the unquenchable light of the world. This Christmas let us call upon Jesus and let Him save us from the darkness bringing the light of hope within us. May Jesus be your hope this Christmas.