Lookin' For Love?

I've spent a lifetime looking for you
Single bars and good time lovers, never true
Playing a fools game,  hoping to win
Telling those sweet lies and losing again

I was looking for love in all the wrong places
Looking for love in too many faces
Searching your eyes, looking for traces
Of what...I'm dreaming of...
Hopin' to find a friend and a lover
God bless the day I discover
Another heart, lookin' for love

When I was alone then, no love in sight
And I did everything I could to get me through the night
Don't know where it started or where it might end
I turn to a stranger, just like a friend

This is the lyrics for Waylon Jennings, Lookin' For Love, that was running through my head as I pondered about love and how habitually distorted my mind had been about it.  I think it's safe to say we've all strive for love, wishing we had a love that completed our heart's desire.  As a Christian we are taught that we can have this type of love.  Jesus has this love for us, God is love.  However, sometimes it seems like it's not enough for us.  Something's missing.  We want to be "wanted", we want to be "desired", we want someone to "love" us so we can finally be at rest and not strive for something to fill that empty void.  We think the man or woman of our dreams possesses such power as to give us that complete love we're looking for.

We are created for relationships.  We are created out of God's love, to love and be loved.  So, naturally, we look to put that into practice with others.  We all want to experience real and true lasting love.  That's not a bad thing, in fact, it's a gift from God.  Where we mess it up a bit are the high expectations we set for others and the lack of expectations we expect from the Lord.  I woke up the morning after our wedding night just shocked at how empty I felt.  It should have been a day filled with new beginnings and hope for our future together.  Instead, the Lord showed me that I had placed a very high expectation of what my husband could add on top of Jesus.  I had placed my "and they lived happily ever after" on the wrong man.  I loved the Lord so much, but I thought being married to my husband would complete the package of love, kinda like the cherry on top.  God wanted me to know He is the cake, the ice cream, the cherry on top & the pretty little sprinkles too.  He is sufficient, more than enough, you can't add to nor take away from the type of love God has.  

Being married we can experience that painful realization that marriage is not enough whether our spouse has wronged us or not.  We run to the Lord in our pain, in our need, to find relief.  Still we look not to the lover of our souls, nor the creator of love, nor to love Himself, but to a replica of love.  Our expectations of how we can fill the void stays with man and does not look to God.  It reminds me of taking a photograph of something beautiful and trying to capture that image with a camera.  When you look at the picture, even though it's still beautiful, it pales in comparison to the real image seen with your own eyes.  The Lord's love compare to man's love is like that.  

About a week after I came to know the Lord, my ex-boyfriend and I ended our relationship.  About a month and a half later, he came over to visit since we had talked about remaining friends and he said he wanted to give me a Valentine gift.  I shared with him all that Jesus had done for me, how He revealed Himself to be real, took my sins and washed me clean and how for the first time in my life I was filled with peace that I never knew existed for a soul to experience.  I remembered feeling so proud of all the Lord had done, my heart was so filled and full as I told him what was happening in my life.  He listened attentively and told me he was happy for me.  He didn't have much to say, and I remembered feeling a little empty at his response.  He gave me this cheap, glass candle holder you can find at Bartell's for like $2 and I gave him this really expensive Salvador Dali print that I couldn't afford.  Then he left.  I felt a little sad and disappointed.  I wasn't sure what I was expecting, but maybe I was expecting him to jump on board with Jesus and we could  be together again.  Talk about naive!  So I started to cry and I prayed to the Lord telling Him everything I was feeling.  While still crying, I heard a voice speaking to me in my head.  He said, "This is man's love."  Immediately, I saw a picture of my boyfriend who represented man.  Then I felt the weight of love fill my whole heart and soul to the fullest that a man's love was capable of.  Let me tell you, it was beautiful and sweet and full!  It felt wonderful and it made me cry because it was such an amazing feeling.  And, yes, it felt very right and very good.

Then I heard the same voice again say, "Now, this is God's love!"  I then saw something pouring down and the weight of God's love filled me and filled me and it wouldn't stop pouring in.  It kept growing, there was so much and I could see or feel that on top of that weight, it was also deeper and deeper still, fuller and fuller, heavier and heavier and it filled my whole heart, body and soul so much so that I could not contain anymore and I thought I was going to burst and die with so much pouring in knowing how much more there was.  I cried, but no sound came out, there was no room, the measure and weight of it was too much and I felt that I had all this body could take and I could not take anymore, but I knew there was much, much more.  My body was incapable of holding the weight and measure of it.  I thought my heart was going to burst and the Lord stayed His hand, and I collapsed just sobbing and sobbing.

I had gotten the idea.  Man's love is beautiful, but it can be measured, it was just right to fill me, it was my size.  God's love is beyond measure, greater and bigger, fuller and deeper.  It just didn't compare.  Man's love paled in comparison, it was but a small picture, a shadow, a small thing.  However, even knowing all this, over the years I found myself bitterly disappointed at choosing the lesser over the greater.  As I find myself reflecting back on this amazing gift the Lord allowed me to know, I wondered at how dense and shallow I was in trading Him in, time and time again.  Why would I constantly choose the lesser over the greater?

Hosea 6:4 says, "What shall I do with you, O Ephraim?  What shall I do with you, O Judah?  For your loyalty is like a morning cloud and like the dew which goes away early."

That can be so like us.  We can have such a fleeting love when things get difficult.  Our comfort is to run inwardly away, start building up walls of protection, have secret places we hide with our lovers.

Jeremiah 2:23-25 says, "How can you say, 'I am not defiled; I have not run after the Baals'?  See how you behaved in the valley; consider what you have done.  You are a swift she-camel running here and there, a wild donkey accustomed to the desert, sniffing the wind in her craving - in her heart, who can restrain her?  Any males that pursue her need not tire themselves; at mating time they will find her.  Do not run until your feet are bare and your throat is dry.  But you said, 'It's no use!  I love foreign gods, and I must go after them.'"

The plain and simple fact is that we have committed the sin of idolatry.  It's a sin God considers as adultery and we must repent of it.  It's the same as when a person cheats against their spouse.  When we place someone or something else above the Lord, no matter how good and healthy it might be, we're saying that that something is what we are finding our satisfaction or worth in.  Which is silly because the only satisfaction our soul knows is God Himself and anything else is not worthy.  Our soul is very costly to the Lord.  He loves us and He created us in His image to know His love.  Jesus Christ died on our behalf so we can be reconciled to God.  It's contrary to His truth to substitute something or someone else for Him because He knows they are not worthy for us, it is not enough for us.  The Lord knows that if it's not Him as the first in our hearts, we get distorted and deceived!  God's desire is for Christ to dwell in our hearts thru faith and that we being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is breadth & height & depth & to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge that we may be filled up to all the fullness of God.  By loving God first, we are able to love others rightly.

The Lord wants us to be real with ourselves.  To know our own thoughts and recognize the motivation of our actions.  Don't say you're fine, you're not defiled and have not run after the Baals (idols).  See how you've behaved in the valley; consider what you have done.  Don't turn a blind eye, look at the way your mind thinks, the actions and behaviors you normally take when you're in the valley.  Where do your thoughts run to?  The valley is where we work hard, it's messy, it's day after day of the mundane and where we face hardships, victories and failures, it's where real life happens.  Are you like a "swift she-camel" a "wild donkey accustomed to the desert, sniffing the wind in her craving - in her heat who can restrain her?"  The unfaithfulness of our love runs and finds our idols, whatever it may be.  Basically, this says that our behavior is like chasing after the instinct of the desires of our flesh, like a donkey in heat who goes here and there trying to find satisfaction.  It's a picture of how passionately  we chase after the lusts of our hearts that cannot be diverted but races around trying to be satisfied.  A female camel becomes violent in her pursuit to find a male.  We make ourselves readily available to the idols of our heart.  Our idols don't have to weary themselves to come find us, we run & go looking for them.

We've lacked self-control and our sin has become a part of our daily lives.  Vs. 25 says, "Do not run until your feet are bare and your throat is dry." This is saying to stop striving, searching and wearing yourself out!  We hear time and time again, look to the cistern from where you were hewn, come to me and drink of the water of the Spirit of life where you will thirst no more and find rest for your souls.  Do you find yourself replying in the same way? "It's no use!  I love foreign gods and I must go after them."  Maybe it's not so extreme as this, but the Lord nevertheless warns us, "can a man take fire to his bosom and his clothes not be burned?" He needs us to take Him seriously and stop playing with fire because we are warned that just as the servant deceived Eve by his craftiness, our minds too can be led astray from the simplicity and pure devotion to Christ.  We are betrothed to one Husband, Christ.  If we continue to wobble in our devotion, not living in the reality and truth of who God is to us and we to Him, we are subject to be deceived.


I am convinced that since God is love, we have to know this love that loves us so unconditionally, faithfully and forgivingly.  Let's get real here, we want to be desired, wanted and loved.  So, Scripture tells us God is love.  It doesn't say man is love, no, it says, God is love.  Man is capable of love, but only God is love.  We need to stop looking for love in all the wrong places, faces, eyes, traces of dreams, etc...  The Preacher in Ecclesiastes says all is vanity.  Vanity means passing swiftly away.  "What advantage does man have in all his work which he does under the sun?"  This is a narrow view of life, the view that only sees what is visible.  A narrow view leads to dissatisfaction.  "All the river flows into the sea, yet the sea is not full."  We fill ourselves with that which is vain, we are never full nor satisfied.  Christ is the only way, truth and life by which our soul's need can overflow with satisfaction. "Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your mind on things above, not on the things that are on earth."  Col 3:1  This means we are going to need to start thinking with awareness, renewing our minds to the obedience of Christ and living according to our spiritual needs.  God is our standard of love, not our own desires or ideas of how love is to be.  The Lord Almighty, He is the real thing, not a substitute.  He's our true love, our sure hope, our strong assurance, our firm foundation.

Do you find yourself restless?  Do you find your thoughts running to something else for satisfaction beside the Lord?  St. Augustine's words ring true to every soul when he said, "Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless 'till they find their rest in Thee."

When our heart and soul cries out with thirst, don't be deceived into thinking it can be quenched by someone or something else other than the Lord Himself.  May the Lord remind us and give us strength to forsake all others at the onset of our restless hearts, at the onset of thirst, to run to Him and drink of the living water of His love.

As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul thirsts for You, O God.  
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. 
 I sought the Lord and He answered me, and delivered me from all my fears.  
They looked to Him and were radiant, and their faces will never be ashamed.