Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places
by Joyce Wagner
There is a subtle but powerful message in our culture today – heard by singles and couples, the young and the old, male and female. Listen closely to your television, or watch the billboards one day on your way home from work and you may realize that you have also fallen prey to the lie that ‘you aren’t really good enough the way you are’. To many this is not news, but most of us do not realize how powerful these subliminal messages are to our well being.
On one level these messages tell us that what we have and own is either not new or good enough – or simply not enough. Whether we see an advertisement for a shiny red car, the latest model vacuum cleaner or a QVC special for an extra powerful 200-volt steam powered travel iron, the message is clear – we don’t have it, but we must ‘need’ it. Messages flash ads to us over the internet, tempting us to purchase something. Sometimes we respond and buy the item, only to find ourselves boxing it up for a yard sale or the Salvation Army a few short years (or months) later. Why… because we bought a lie.
While the packaging may be new and slick, the lie is as old as man. We find the same struggle among many other human foibles mentioned in the Scriptures. From Lot to Judas we find individuals who forgot that we bring nothing into this world, and carry nothing from it; and in Luke 12, we find Jesus telling his disciples his view about the value of storing up of wealth and material possessions:
The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, "What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops. Then he said, "This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, you have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." But God said to him, "You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?" This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!"
Rather than desiring the latest and the greatest, thank the Lord for what He has provided in your life. When you feel tempted to buy on impulse, remind yourself that you are not defined by what you ‘have’, but rather who you are, in Christ – a son or daughter with an eternal destiny and inheritance in Heaven.
Perhaps even more devastating than buying the lie that we will be happy ‘if’ we own this or that is the false notion that we will be happy ‘if’ we were somehow more attractive. Whether you are too tall or short, fat or thin, loud or shy, there seems to be a magnifying glass that our world holds up to accentuate our areas of weakness. Fears of rejection, abandonment and loneliness abound while we all try to ‘get it together’ in order to give it to someone else – yet this is a far cry from how Jesus views us.
Have you considered lately that you were created in His image? That you were made just a little lower than the angels? How about the fact that you were fearfully and wonderfully knit together, with plans and a purpose for your life that was set out before the foundation of the earth? When was the last time you looked in the mirror and reminded yourself that you are beautiful in the Lord’s eyes, so much so that He delights Himself in you. What about those gifts and talents, given specifically to you in order that you might do good works during your time here on earth?
This Valentine’s day, tune out the messages the world tries to crowd into your life, because the truth is we can never be good enough; Jesus already knows that. Don’t buy the lie that you are worthless or somehow ‘flawed;’ remember that Jesus loves you just the way you are – a truth you can read this truth throughout His word (Psalm 139, 1 John 3, Romans 8, Isaiah 43).
Rather than wasting time and money on the world’s solution, spend your energies developing a relationship with the One who will never let you down. Let that relationship lead you to love and serve others. Jesus said, "I will be in them and You will be in me so that the world will know that You sent me and that You loved them just as much as You loved me." (John 17:23)