Weekly Word Archives

Devotional Series

All I Need Is Love...

(CLICK YOUR BROWSERS "BACK" BUTTON WHEN FINISHED)

It is a familiar line from a song of my youth. After working with young married couples for many years, I realize that most couples discover that it takes more than love!

Marriages in America today are fragile. The divorce rate is rising, there are more couples living together without marriage than ever before, marriage decisions are often based on economics rather than morality.

How many people are getting married because they need love? I believe most people, who get married for the first time, want someone to fill that empty spot in their heart. Unfortunately, both the husband and the wife are looking for someone to fill the empty spot. One author uses that analogy of a tick on a dog, except you have two ticks, no dog.

Basically, a person is seeking out someone who will give them life. At least one spouse soon discovers that the other one falls short. To use another illustration, it is much the same as a man and a woman each being thirsty. They each have some water in their cup but they both want more. They see each other with a partially filled cup. They decide to put their own straw into the other’s cup to drink. It is satisfying for awhile. Then suddenly, they both run dry! Let the conflicts begin!

One of the first statements we give our engaged and newly married couples is that they are not to look to their spouse for love. What a shock! God never says in His Word to seek love from another person at all, not even a husband or a wife. He says to seek Him. O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. (Psalm 63:1) Not only does He want to be the one that quenches our thirst for love, He is the only one who can satisfy us.

He has promised that when we seek Him, we will find Him. From one man he made every nation of men….God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. (Acts 17:26-27) When we find Him, He will pour out His love into us. Because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. (Romans 5:5)

But God did make us for relationship with other people too. The need in those relationships, including marriage, is not the need to be taking love from others. It is the need to give love. To go back to the water and the cup illustration, both the husband and the wife would be pouring water continually into each other’s cup. If the picture is now of pouring water, from whom does the source of the water come? Yes, it is from God, a source that never runs dry. He is the Niagara Falls for the love of life.

His desire is that each one of us receives love from Him and pours it out into the hearts of those around us, without expecting anything in return. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. (John 13:34b) We love others in the same unconditional way, not because we make ourselves or keep trying harder, but because He has given us His love.

If both a husband and wife are going to God to be satisfied with their need for love, they can pour love out to each other, no matter what the other person does or how they act. There is still interdependence in marriage, but it comes from giving, not from taking. This scenario illustrates why God said that it is better to give than to receive. We have the opportunity to go the Living Water for an abundant supply. We feel loved, we are loved. Our love for others will never run dry!