Waiting on Love

The number one thing that I see so many people—every person, really—desire above all else is love.

Deep within us, we know we’re not meant to be alone. Deep within us, we desire the love and affirmation of a person—sometimes any person.

Ever wonder (annoyed) why almost all pop songs are about love? That’s because love is one thing definitely everybody can relate to (which makes it marketable.)

Though friendships, family, and children are one kind of love, the most popular type is the marriage-sort of love. This is ideal; who wouldn’t want a person to love them that would always stay with them, in sickness or in health, to the very end of their lives?

Not a person I know would say no to that kind of love.

But sometimes, this love can become warped and twisted, like all good things.

All real love comes from God—He is the Author of love.

And God does have your life planned out; he does have a special person there who will love you.

But what does He often tell us to do?

Wait.

And while all of us desire love and gratification, waiting is one of the most terrible words in our human vocabulary. Yes, we want love. But we want it now.

And then we have to decide. Are we going to wait on God’s perfect love? Or are we, in our impatience, or sadness, or insecurity—going to try and fill the hole inside ourselves by ourselves?

Gay marriage and homosexual relationships are one example of broken people—like all of us—lonely people—searching for love but refusing to wait on the kind of love God wants for them.

Often, these relationships end badly, because God’s love is what truly sustains a good relationship.

These kinds of relationships, exciting as they may be in the moment, aren’t a true solution—they’re only like alcohol—a temporary way to feel good, but not a permanent solution to the problem of loneliness.

Of course, all of us know the damage of what bad relationships can do. Bad relationships—like marriage that ends in divorce—are harmful to the individuals in the relationship, the children of the relationship, and the family of the people. Everyone is affected by a bad relationship.

And bad relationships are—no surprise—a result of what happens when the pursuit of love is self centered gratification and temporary happiness, not a real, true, selfless love that is rooted in the knowledge of what real love—God’s love—is.

When we can follow God’s commands and understand His love, it enables us to enter in human relationships that He has planned for us that benefit us and the other person. Love, we must remember, is not all about us and our desire for affirmation, not only for the other person and their desire for love, but also about God and His true knowledge of what real love is.

Choosing to follow God and wait on Him, for the person He has for us, will result in a relationship that knows what true love is and is full of the real fulfillment He wants for us. Part of love is sacrificing what we want for what God wants, because whatever God wants will be truly fulfilling for us.

And if waiting is God’s calling to you, then follow it, because waiting will show you how much better God’s reward and His resolution to the problem is than any petty human way you can try to fix the hole yourself.