Have you ever fallen in love before? Can you remember the feeling, the first time you felt it? It originated in your heart and made your chest feel like it was about to explode. It was like a giant ball of pulsating energy that couldn’t wait to get out. Your mind was in on it too as thoughts of “Should I call her or should I give her space” played back and forth in your head like a cerebral table tennis game. Heartache is one of the worst feelings known to man.
Have you ever fallen in love before? Can you remember the feeling, the first time you felt it? It originated in your heart and made your chest feel like it was about to explode. It was like a giant ball of pulsating energy that couldn’t wait to get out. Your mind was in on it too as thoughts of “Should I call her or should I give her space” played back and forth in your head like a cerebral table tennis game. Heartache is one of the worst feelings known to man.
During the initial moments, days and weeks of a romance there seems to be a delicate juggling act going on as you watched the balls going round and round, never knowing if one might suddenly drop out of the mix. Your creative mind begins to conjure up scenarios where you imagine your newfound love out with somebody else laughing or crying without you. You can feel your blood beginning to boil as you continually play back the possibilities.
Over the centuries many poems, quotes and songs have been written in an attempt to qualify love and romance into a form that we can read or play over and over again. An eighties rock band, the Sweet, put in their two cents “Love is like oxygen, you get too much, you get too high, not enough and you're gonna die, love gets you high”. Many tried but in the end it was John Lennon who came very close to capturing the quintessential meaning of love when he penned these words “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you lend”.
The fact is, that love does not come from us at all it comes from God and we were never meant to keep it but give it out to others as needed. But if love is not ours then where does it originate? God is love and all love comes from the Father. I have a friend who often would say, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”. It’s in that sentence captured in the ink where the true center of our purpose lies. Unfortunately, until selfishness, greed and the lust for money, power and fame begin to die away; the world will not experience lasting peace.
Even within our homes, successful relationships with our husbands and wives are balanced on our ability to put each other’s needs before our own. Respect for others, caring for others while denying self are the only actions will ever bring the world into a better place. The good news is that this kingdom is coming; the bad news is not through human devices. It is God and God alone who holds the power and the means to accomplish this awesome task because He first loved us.
Free elections, human rights marches and thousands of well-intended petitions will never bridge the gap that lies between a sinful world and a holy God. Our attempts to redeem ourselves, while valiant, will always come up short never reaching to the gates of heaven. God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. He is pure, holy and righteous, and He alone is our provider; Yahweh is salvation. When Jesus was here on earth, in fact on the last day He was here on earth, He comforted His disciples with these words “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me!”
So as we wait for the world to improve, as our anticipation grows and we get that funny feeling welling up from our hearts, remember that God has promised to return for us! He is faithful and true and will never leave us or forsake us. He has said that nothing can separate us from His love, nothing that is, unless we turn away from Him! From the very beginning God has only desired that we have a relationship with Him. He wanted our full attention, devotion and most of all our love. Unfortunately, sometimes we lose our focus, get sidetracked and take our eyes off of Him and we fall away. That’s why it’s paramount that we keep that first “falling in love” feeling burning in our hearts for God. But as far as His promise to us, He said He would never leave us or forsake us, providing that we repent and turn back towards Him!
“Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place-unless you repent.”
