WHY DO WE NEED LOVE?

Why Do We Need Love?

Have you ever been in love before?  It is a magical, wonderful feeling.  There’s nothing like it in the whole world.  Everything looks differently, more vivid, more colorful.  Everything feels differently, even breathing becomes a noticeable thing when our heart is racing and we can feel the flush in our cheeks and the blood rushing in our veins.  It is true that beauty is all around us, the sun is brighter, the bloom is more perfect, the song of the birds are sweeter.  It is as though we walk through life like we’re almost half alive, half awake.  When that special someone enters even into our thoughts, we are suddenly completely alive and wide awake.

It’s connection.  People long to be connected to another.  To have the feeling and the experience of knowing that someone else notices us in ways that no one else ever seemed to before.  We begin to see ourselves in that same light, through their eyes and it gives us more satisfaction than any other thing out there.  A full blown natural high.  To be admired, to be missed, to be longed for, to be desired, to be fulfilled.  Some of us will give almost anything to find it or to re-connect to that same high once more.

Where do we think this blissful sensation originated?  Why such a strong urge and draw towards its radiance?

We are not alone.  We never have been.  We are unique, true enough, as special and individual as each snowflake, fingerprint, or star in the heavens.  But we are not independent.  We are built for connection, for joining, for dependence.  We are designed with a void within the depths of who we are.  No one can deny that we are not autonomous, no man’s an island, right?

Perhaps only a few of us are incomplete without connection to another.  Maybe there are many of us that are quite contented to live without the intimate connection to another.  After all, there are several million people on this planet, perhaps billions that have some connection to friends, family, or loved ones.  We all seem to or at least claim to halfheartedly live contented and fulfilled lives, right?  Or do we?

I think one of the biggest tragedies in life is the lonely desperation that most people live with every day.  We live so much inside our own selves, either unable to or too afraid to reach out from the inside to connect to another.  Worse yet, because of this unanswered and unheard desperate yearning to be truly noticed by another, close to another, loved by another we oftentimes build resentment towards ourselves and others for being so unfulfilled.  Our pain is acted out in the taking for granted or abuse of others.

The void inside us perpetuates pain.  Is this hole or flaw in our design on purpose or is it by accident?  If we were designed, created, or even let’s say for arguement’s sake ’evolved’ with this unmet need inside us, what is the purpose for life?

Our imperfection is not by accident.  It purposeful.  It is beautiful.  Our void of unsatisfaction was actually the design logo by the Master Craftsman.  His stamp upon us, being His brilliant works of art.  By creating us to be so beautiful, so incredible yet with one final missing piece, we in our imperfection will always seek out the perfect.  The perfect moment, the perfect beauty, the perfect smile, the perfect feeling, the perfect love, the perfect circumstance...we will constantly seek after this connection to perfection, the one missing part that will make us complete.

He made us that way so that we will recognize our incompleteness.  No one and no thing can ever fill this void, this gap in our souls.  Most of us will spend our whole lives in futile searching to quench this never-ending thirst.  We will look everywhere for the one answer that will satisfy all of our questions.  We will never stop trying new things and experiencing new experiences always hopeful that this one thing will be the one thing that will add true satisfaction to us and to our lives.

The void, the thirst, the drive is all stamped within our hearts because He wants us to recognize our need for Him.  No relationship will ever satisfy us, no achievement, no material thing will ever give us the one thing we need to complete us and sustain us.  Nothing with any lasting power. Nothing.

Except for one thing.  Him.  Connection to Him.  Knowing Him.  Experiencing Him.  Relating to Him.  Resting in Him.  We need to reconnect at the Source.  Go back to where it all began.  With Him.  And He longs to be connected to us and has done everything He can, put out hints everywhere, signs all over, people in our lives, jobs, experiences, heartaches, blessings, riches, troubles all of it to point to Him.  All we have to do is recognize them and admit our need.

You are reading this right now thinking I am wrong, but that is yourself trying to rationalize a lot of things you think you will have to give up to find that ultimate connection.  But if you search your own deep thoughts and truest feelings at your very core you know that I am right.  If you are not afraid and are honest with yourself, you will think about this.  Hard.  And realize, recognize, and admit it too.  Then your heart, mind, and very soul will be so filled with love, light, and satisfaction you won’t think you’re able to contain it.

"My goal is that their hearts, having been knit together in love, may be encouraged, and that they may have all the riches that assurance brings in their understanding of the knowledge of the mystery of God, namely, Christ." Col. 2:2