Men take note: The Super Bowl is over and Valentine’s Day is about a week away! Fair or not, Valentine’s Day is a day when the male species is called to step up for their significant other, for the “love” in their life. Love — just thinking about the word that can make a heart flutter uncontrollably, the toughest men blush, grown men cry and women jump for joy.
Sometimes, however, men forget to use their internal editor. There was a husband who made two terrible mistakes in one day. First, he forgot his wife's birthday. Then he tried to cover his oversight without thinking through the consequences of his excuse. He said, "Honey, I just want you to know I didn't forget your birthday, I just didn't get you anything."
As Tim Hawkins sang, “If you're a man who wants to live a long and happy life there are the things you don't say to your wife.” Other things you may want to avoid saying: “Have you gained some weight in your rear end?” Or, “That dress reminds me of my old girlfriend.” As an added word of advice, no good conversation ever began with the words, “Those jeans make you look like your mother.”
Psychiatrists say that three of the greatest needs of a human being are the need to be wanted, the need to be needed, and the need to be loved.
When we think of our love life and the need to be loved, most of us think in terms of relationship with a person. Too many people overlook or forget the love relationship we have with God. Many people, when they think of God, think religion or rules or possibly ritual. Although the Bible does include a lot of these when referring to God, they all pale in comparison to relationship. God is into relationship. And God wants to have a heart love relationship with you and with me, and God wants us to have a heart love relationship with each other.
Try this! Touch your fingertips from your right hand up against the fingertips of your left hand. Now bend your fingers so your fingernails touch, and let your joined thumb tips drop a little downward. Your hands create a heart.
How you formed this heart with your hands is what Heart Love is all about. It joins together and bends a little to meet the other. Heart Love is a love that gives of itself to another person then forgets the favor rendered. It’s a love that finds something to love in everyone, even in the seemingly unlovable. Heart Love is what God has given us, and Heart Love is what we are called to give the world. As a friend of mine once shared, “We don’t have to like everyone, but we are called to love them.” It is the choice to love others and give love away that matures and perfects each one of us as Christians.
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