A QUEST FOR LOVE

We ate lunch at a restaurant this week with Ryan and Angela and our two of our amazing grandchildren, Maya and Sophie. Sophie is just over one still has this incredibly cute, unstable, tee tottering “walk” and after she finished eating we let her walk around the table a little. At the next table were some teenage girls who spotted Sophie and smiled at her. That’s like saying “sic ‘em” to a dog, so she took a few “steps” toward them and just stood there coyly smiling at them while they made a huge fuss over her. Maya, now three, and also devastatingly cute, but no longer in the “very-cute-baby-who-just-started-walking-category” saw this, and so after Sophie had moved on to other pursuits, Maya walked over to where Sophie had been standing and eagerly looked at the teenaged girls hoping to elicit a similar response. Sadly, they ignored her (I’m not blaming them, I fully understand). So, she began to walk back and forth a little closer, her eyes locked on the one girl who had given so much attention to Sophie. Maya was smiling hopefully as she held her arms out and started to twirl to get their attention . . . nothing. Seeing this, I started to call Maya’s name to divert her from this painful effort to be noticed, but she was intent on getting the same attention her little sister got.

I wanted to say to the other table, “Would you please pay attention to my other grandchild?” but I didn’t. I don’t know if I was more sad for Maya’s disappointment at that moment (after all, we could “fix” it pretty quickly) or if I was more sad knowing that what had just happened on a very small scale was going to happen again and again throughout Maya’s life on a much larger scale, as it does to everyone of us in this broken world where our deep longing to be loved is so often unfulfilled.

I couldn’t help but think what a parable of life that little drama was that unfolded before me. We may not be so obvious in our efforts to be noticed and valued, but it’s what we all long for – “Will someone please notice me? Will someone please do something that tells me I have value and worth? Will someone please LOVE me?”

Proverbs 19:22 is a profound commentary on human nature, “What a man desires is unfailing love.”

Much of our lives we’re on a quest – a life-time search for love – TRUE LOVE – unfailing love, “no-matter-what” love, unconditional love.

This is the focus of our sermons this weekend at Calvary, "DOES TRUE LOVE EXIST?'

Ultimately, that longing for love can only be fully satisfied when we find ourselves embraced by the love of God.