The Limitations of Human Love

 We hear a lot of good things about people showing love, performing acts of love to our neighbors, even strangers, and removing barriers to expressing love in action.  Let me be the first to say amen to that!

I'm reminded of a song on the radio when I was growing up as a baby-boomer sung by Jackie DeShannon entitled, "What the World Needs Now is Love.”  It was a popular song and was a hit for a long time on the charts.

Jackie's song reminds me that what the world is not only looking for but truly needs is love.  The only question that remains is, “What kind of love?"  What or who.defines the love we are talking about here?  That question is vitally important because we all know human love in some way, usually from a parent, family member, or perhaps even someone who we met along life's pathway who demonstrated genuine love to us when we particularly needed it.

Some of you know my story, perhaps by reading my book, "All the Way Home,” but for those who haven't read it, let me share something with you about the subject of the search for love.  When I was six years old my dad died suddenly and my brother, sister, and I were left to live with our step-mother on our family farm. My step-mother was my dad's third wife and three years later, she orphaned all of us on the same August day in 1966.  I would never live with my brother or sister again for the remainder of my life, nor would my family ever re-unite.  

By the time I was fifteen years old I would live in six different foster homes, and a school for boys in Hershey, Pa.  By that time I only had one reason to get out of bed every morning and that was to get my family back...somehow.  I craved the love I once felt in my family circle.  I would have died a thousand deaths to feel it once again, but the Lord never allowed that desire to be fulfilled in the way I wanted it to be.  By the time I was nineteen years old I was broken and empty.  Very few people in my life understood my heart or my need at that time, but fortunately, God had been following me every day of my life since that fateful day when the social worker came to take me away from my family forever.  Little did I know then that what I really needed was another kind of love that could not only meet my human need but also transform my world forever.

On the morning of July 5th, 1975, I heard a word of Scripture from Romans 6:23 which began to open my eyes to the reasons for my broken world,

The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

But as I sat in my lonely apartment that morning there was one other word from Scripture which not only shattered my adolescent desire for my family,  but spoke directly to my broken heart like no mere human had ever done.  It said,

But God commends His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

The moment those words landed on my ears, and then my brain, and finally my heart, I realized that I had been looking for the wrong love to meet my real need for many years.  It was then that I understood that God had actually been pursuing me every step of the way!  He had been there preparing me along my bumpy path for this very moment in order to show me His love for me.

It was actually His love that I ultimately craved and desperately needed to make me whole!  And in the next few moments that morning I quietly but resolutely in faith opened my life to the One who died for me to give me the greatest gift I had ever received.

I wish Jackie DeShannon could have included that in her song so many years ago, but God knew that I was not yet ready to receive God's great gift.  Ten years later I was ready to receive and accept God's love and break past the limitations of human love.  How about you?  Have you considered God's love gift?  Are you where I was way back in 1975 and ready to receive God's love for you?