The Price of Love

For a while now, I have had families on my mind. I noticed that families around me were crumbling, foundations shook loose, marriages tested. I know I have experienced attacks in my own family but my troubles seem to pale in comparison to the troubles others are experiencing. I thank God for His favor over my household, but I pray for His holy anointing on those around me.

LOVE. It's what everyone in the world is searching for. Single people are looking for someone to love them. Married people are looking for someone new to love. Children are crying out for attention and love from their parents. But God is love. So what's the problem?

I have realized that people are searching for a tangible love. Sure many of us know that God loves us like crazy but we still desire that tangible, here on Earth kind of love to keep us warm at night. The kind of love that makes us laugh, takes us out on the town, shares a meal or coffee with, make plans for the future type of love. We go to great lengths to find that love and even greater lengths to hold on to that love.

I sit and swap stories and ideas with my single friends about love and relationships and we are all usually on the same page. We are looking for godly men who are strong in their faith and walking out their purpose. I always quote Meredith Grey and say I want a man who is already "whole and healed." I envision God providing me with a leader, not a leader in training. Someone who can balance life and the church, while keeping God in the center of everything. Someone that will challenge me and keep me going after God. It amazes me how my criteria for men has changed over the years. It has gone from superficial non sense to character, personality, faith and purpose requirement. God has removed the veil to show me the traits that should mean the most, traits that don't lose value over time.

So why don't other people search for the traits that define a person instead of what they get at face value? Why do so many people pay such a high price for the sake of love?

If I haven't learned anything else of value over the past year of my journey with Christ, I've learned that you cannot love someone without understand how God loves each of us. God's love for us is the blue print, the standard. The longing feelings and desires for love that we feel are usually a void that is in our hearts that needs to be filled. Many of us go from man to man or woman to woman trying to fill that void that only God can fill. He is our living water, He is love. When I finally stop looking for love and allowed God's love to fill that empty space, my thirst was finally satisfied. My longing ended. But for some that's not enough.

Too many people are still searching for love, still trying desperately to hold on to what they think is love, sacrificing so much of themselves to maintain love. It's sad and it's not what God intended for us. Usually when my longings appear, that means I am not spending enough time having God pour out His love into my heart. I am not aligned with God, who is love. When I get my walk with God back on track, I no longer have that desire to seek out something that is already there. When relationships or marriages get rocky, people turn to someone else to fulfill that need that is missing. They are not in alignment with God and the enemy finds his way in. Marriages fail everyday because someone is longing for love. People stay in unhealthy relationships because they holding on so tight. People are so afraid of being alone, they compromise God's word for the sake of love. They trade God's truth with their own personal agenda. Such a high price to pay for love.

1 John 4:8 says "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." If God is not your main source of love, the you don't know love and you don't know God like you should. If you are compromising your morals and the Bible's instructions in order to get or maintain love, you've already lost. God's love heals, redeems, transforms, sustains. Anything outside of Him is just like trying to catch air in a net; it will always slip through the cracks. Let God's love be your first love. Let His love be your main source of love and understanding. Let everything else be an addition to the love that He firmly plants in your heart.