Remember the children's story "The Velveteen Rabbit"? It's a beautiful story of a stuffed animal that becomes real because it is loved by it's owner. It's a story that made us hug our stuffed animals just that much tighter. Here's an often quoted excerpt:
An underlying truth that makes this story so accessable to people is that we are all wired to love and be loved (and the fantasy that our beloved stuffed animals would be real is pretty appealing too.)
We all know that when you do not have love in your life, there is a great void that seems to suck in all of our joy and happiness. I've seen it written on so many faces and there have been times when I have longed for it too.
That helped me counsel a teen girl who felt depressed and terribly incomplete because she had never been on a date and had what she saw the exciting experiences so many of her peers having. I don't know if she also saw the heartache all around her when those teen romances self-destructed or dissolved.
She wondered if she was unlovable, ugly, or had an unattractive personality. She talked about how she saw people in love everywhere, in school, in the romance novels she was reading (even some Christian ones), on TV, in the love songs on the radio and it really messed with her emotions. Her longing to be loved was so strong that as she talked, I began to be a little afraid for her. I was afraid that she would do as so many have and jump at the first guy that showed her any affection. I was also afraid that this was the only romantic kind of love that she would chase after.
That just illustrates the depth of our desire to be loved. So many of us are chasing love from "all the wrong places". Sometimes even settling for cheap imitations of real love, like lust, instead of the real thing, the allowing the most immediate, convenient kind of love that fully and completely defines us.
There is only one love that can completely define us and make us real. That is the love of our maker, who spoke us into being by divine will so that we might know him and love him (Genesis 2,3). God knows everything about us AND still loves us (Psalm 139). Nothing is hidden from him (Hebrews 4:13). His love is unstoppable (Lamentations 3:22-23). He loved us so much that he took on our flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). Then when we loved counterfeit gods and our own sin more than him (Romans 5:8), He still paid the price for our sins reconciling us back to him (Colossians 1:19,20). By turning from sin and trusting in this substitution we have eternal life with God forever (John 3:16). That life forever will be with God in all his splendor and all our sickness, misery, disease, and death will be no more (Revelations 21:4). We will have finally entered into the most real promised land of which this one we are in now is only a shadow (Hebrews 8:5). We will know as we are known and experience God's love in it's fullness. Until then we know we are real to God. He defines our identity, making us saints.
We all know that when you do not have love in your life, there is a great void that seems to suck in all of our joy and happiness. I've seen it written on so many faces and there have been times when I have longed for it too.
That helped me counsel a teen girl who felt depressed and terribly incomplete because she had never been on a date and had what she saw the exciting experiences so many of her peers having. I don't know if she also saw the heartache all around her when those teen romances self-destructed or dissolved.
She wondered if she was unlovable, ugly, or had an unattractive personality. She talked about how she saw people in love everywhere, in school, in the romance novels she was reading (even some Christian ones), on TV, in the love songs on the radio and it really messed with her emotions. Her longing to be loved was so strong that as she talked, I began to be a little afraid for her. I was afraid that she would do as so many have and jump at the first guy that showed her any affection. I was also afraid that this was the only romantic kind of love that she would chase after.
That just illustrates the depth of our desire to be loved. So many of us are chasing love from "all the wrong places". Sometimes even settling for cheap imitations of real love, like lust, instead of the real thing, the allowing the most immediate, convenient kind of love that fully and completely defines us.
There is only one love that can completely define us and make us real. That is the love of our maker, who spoke us into being by divine will so that we might know him and love him (Genesis 2,3). God knows everything about us AND still loves us (Psalm 139). Nothing is hidden from him (Hebrews 4:13). His love is unstoppable (Lamentations 3:22-23). He loved us so much that he took on our flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). Then when we loved counterfeit gods and our own sin more than him (Romans 5:8), He still paid the price for our sins reconciling us back to him (Colossians 1:19,20). By turning from sin and trusting in this substitution we have eternal life with God forever (John 3:16). That life forever will be with God in all his splendor and all our sickness, misery, disease, and death will be no more (Revelations 21:4). We will have finally entered into the most real promised land of which this one we are in now is only a shadow (Hebrews 8:5). We will know as we are known and experience God's love in it's fullness. Until then we know we are real to God. He defines our identity, making us saints.
We are Velveteen Saints made real by our very real and loving God.
Take time to meditate on this.
1 Corinthians 13:8 -13
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (emphasis mine)
1 Corinthians 13:8 -13
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (emphasis mine)