Romantic love is not wrong, but there is a finer love that each of us can have one for another. From that love flows a true desire which says, “I want above all for you to have what you need, even if I can’t have it along with you.”
By its nature, love is giving, and the higher the quality of the love, the more costly a sacrifice the lover is willing to make as a gift. In the direst need, love would give all that one had to give, even to the extent of life itself (John 15:13).
The fact that we’re going to have to give up all of our loves in this world doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy them deeply. And having already lost some of our cherished relationships, if they were virtuous we should never say we wish we’d never had them.
In contrast to what we’ll enjoy in eternity, all things here are transitory. Not one of these enjoyments is ours to keep permanently. Job spoke for all of us when he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there.”
My heart aches with an emptiness that nearly kills me. But the rightful King is reigning, and one day this darkness will be sent back to the hell from whence it came. Dark night once had me in its grip, but it has me no more. The dawn is breaking.
We can only imagine what it must have been like to live in Eden, prior to the pain. We live in a broken world, but we yearn for one that isn’t. To put it plainly: we suffer. But our suffering is not meaningless. A “birth” is coming.
In terms of earthly servitude, a servant might not be highly motivated to please his master, but if God is the Master, shouldn’t it give us great delight to please Him? Isn’t that the highest goal that we could ever reach forward to?
We wish our joys in this world didn’t always have to be ruined by sorrow. And in fact, a day is coming when complete joy and rest will be given. But that time is not yet. For now, we need to accept the reality of both our toil and our tears.
The judgment day will clarify many things. For example, it will clarify what was important (rather than trivial) and permanent (rather than temporary). If we would look with honesty and courage, we could see these realities right now.
For now, the truth about God is not unequivocal. It is possible to deny that He exists. But when the Father and His Son openly declare themselves, the truth will be unavoidable. Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess the truth.
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