The Valentines are flying today! Our grandchildren are doing their part at school today. The florists are freaking out today and counting their shekels tonight. And I did my part to help the struggling greeting card company that some suspect invented this day!
As I celebrate the lifetime love God's given me in my amazing wife, I did have a flashback of a not-so-happy romantic memory. Back in the day when I was 13 and sure that I was in love. Right.
Let's call this junior high heartthrob "Cindy." I remember combing the stores on our little town's main street for the perfect gift for Cindy - something to let her know that I had feelings for her. I bought the nicest necklace a few weeks' allowance could afford - a heart-shaped necklace, of course. I wrapped it in the mushy note I'd written, and put it in an envelope - then I left it on her desk in study hall.
The next day she passed by my desk and, as my heart beat loud enough to dance to, she silently left an envelope on my desk. There was a brief moment of excited anticipation, followed by one massive letdown. It was the envelope I'd given her...with my note and my necklace inside. I was crushed. She'd rejected the love gift I'd spent everything on.
God knows how that feels. He has spent everything on His love gift for you and me. In the Bible's words, "He did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all...God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life" (Romans 8:32; John 3:16). You understand how deeply personal that love is when you put your name in what God said. For me, "God so loved Ron that He gave His one and only Son that if Ron will believe in Him, Ron will not perish..."
But God knows the feeling of pouring out His love for us and having us just hand it back to Him. "Thanks, God, but no thanks. I'm not interested."
It's not a necklace we're rejecting. It's "the gift of God (which) is eternal life" (Romans 6:23). In short, we're rejecting heaven. Because there's no way to get there except to have every wrong thing we've ever done forgiven. And that took Jesus doing the dying for the sinning we've done.
For too many, Valentine's Day is just a reminder of how disappointing human love has been. Even a great love fails to fill that gaping hole in our heart. It's just too big for any human to fill. The hole in our heart has Jesus' name on it. And only He has the unloseable love that will anchor and complete us.
It must hurt God a lot to have spent so much and have us care so little. But He's a stubborn lover. He's back again today, offering His love to someone who's reading this today. What a day to finally find the Love you've been looking for all your life!