Love Because...

“We love because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19

I have never had to experience physical hunger. Oh, I’ve gone without eating, skipped a meal, and heard my stomach reenact a summer thunderstorm. But I have never experienced true hunger.

I have fasted in the past, up to five days. The first two or three days are the most difficult. The pangs are not true hunger pangs, but rather the habit our body creates for food. Most of us of normal weight can easily go a couple of days before the body begins to use resources other than body fat. Once the “habit hunger” passes by, there is a brief time of peaceful “non food” existence before true hunger sets in.

I have never fasted long enough to experience this, but I have read that the difference between “real hunger” and “habit hunger” is like night and day. The body, having consumed all of its stored fat, begins to break down muscle to exist. Pain, weakness and even delirium can ensue as a result.

Most of us in western countries have never experienced this kind of hunger. Some way, somehow most of us find a way to eat. This is not to ignore the plight of the poor in any way. It is to enlighten a hunger that is much deeper which we often overlook.

No matter how well-fed, how rich or poor, every human needs love as much as he needs food. We have all heard about the experiments with babies where one is left without human touch for a number of days. The results are significant. The child becomes withdrawn and recoils from touch.

I believe we suffer from a hunger for love in most developed countries. We have so many substitutes that we sometimes are entirely unaware of how hungry we actually are. I think the recent rise of Social Networks points to this fact.

On the one hand, I am wonderfully grateful that I can have many of my worldwide friends right here on my desk while I do my work. I might even tab back and forth between this page I am writing and my Facebook page, just to recheck a friend’s status. Ok, not “might”, I actually did.

But I wonder if anyone else has experienced this. Though happy to see that my daughter-in-law is online, and that a fellow minister in Missouri is going fishing, it also creates a sense of loss or loneliness. Maybe it’s just me and my old depression, turning every good thing into something sad.

But, I’m not so sure. I think the ability to check on my pals actually masks the deepest need I have to truly connect with people. There are those occasions when an online chat actually fills that void. We begin a conversation with a friend, and forget we are actually typing; we are connecting in a very real way.

But, most times, checking my friends’ statuses is more about my heart saying, “Is anyone there?” I personally mourn the fact that my age-old friends are scattered across the nation, along with my family, and I have very few deep friendships where I currently live. Partly my fault (I need to take some initiative) and time’s fault (we have only been here about three years.)

But, back to that hunger, the desire for connection. We do not long for the connection itself as much as the love passed back and forth because of the connection. We don’t just grab someone off the street and buy them coffee. Although, come to think of it, that might be an interesting way to befriend someone.

We are made to connect. More specifically, we are made to love and be loved. But, either we are frightened because previous connections have shorted out, or we may have replaced the high-energy love with low level internet connections.

God has made us for love. God made us to be the object of His love. God has never been lonely, but His character is to love. Is it so farfetched to believe that God, out of love, created us so He could actually display His love toward us?

Once we actually know that God loves us, our purpose changes. We still feel the need for connections, probably far deeper than before. But, our love becomes more like His. We do not seek out people who can make us “feel better” and ease our hunger. Instead, like God, we seek those who hunger and love them with the love we have experienced from God.

God lacks nothing. He did not create us so He could feel fulfilled in any way. So, the love we show, having received it from Him, is meant to fulfill those around us.

It is chancy business, this love stuff. Once I reach out to someone, to befriend someone hungry to be loved, I set myself up for rejection. That is why we must first have experienced God’s love for us. We are loved by the God of the Universe; He has loved us with the full measure of His love. Knowing that, we begin to love those around us, resting in His undying love.

Idealist? Yes, you are right, that is what I am. But I must have the Ideal as my goal if I want to ever learn the love God has shown. God came on this earth in a body, with bones that ached when the humidity changed, muscles that burned after a long uphill hike, eyes that cried when seeing the pain around him, arms that held both lepers and babies, and ears that heard every cry for healing.

Taking our form as Jesus, He went on to be crucified by people thinking they were doing God’s work. Jesus submitted to it all out of love for us. He calls us to do the same, to lay down our lives for each other. But He does not ask us to do it without first knowing His love for us!