Our Greatest Human Need

 The sky turns rosy-red as the sun slips behind the majestic mountains at the wedding reception venue. Two young people from my church have just declared their love to another, and we are all here to celebrate it. Tables decorated in simple elegance await our presence as dinner will be served and the dancing and fun will begin. This wedding has been months in the making and this love between them, even longer. Tears flowed from the groom's eyes as he watched his beloved come down the aisle earlier. Upon saying their vows and being announced for the first time as husband and wife, she hopped up and down in anticipation of what, I guessed, was to be their first kiss. Having come back down the aisle as a married couple, I watched the groom cup the face of his bride in a private moment and mouth the words to her, "I'm so happy!" as his face beamed with pride and excitement. 

Hours later, with the reception in full swing, the toasts being made, more tears being shed, and prayers for their happiness being spoken, I watched as they danced their first dance together and it suddenly struck me that this pure love I was witnessing is simple evidence of our most basic and greatest human need: the need to be loved. From the beginning, God declared that it was "not good for man to be alone" and thus, the need for community was born. Of all the amazing things God created and made, the one thing He said wasn't right was isolation. Loneliness. We needed to be able to feel the affection and belonging of someone outside ourselves in order to made complete. Thus the truth was early on established that humans are not self-sustaining. We can certainly live and breathe on our own as far but, when it comes to finding any meaning, any joy, any long-lasting happiness or communion, we need something beyond our own being. 

The bride's father said it best and we all know it in our deepest soul: remove all the glitz and glamour but, at the end of the day, what we share with each other is what matters most. The giving and receiving of love, both in the human and in the Divine, is central to the making of a good and lasting life.

In contrast, I couldn't help but think, as another lady from church who attended the wedding and sat at my table talked about her wayward son and how he doesn't have any friends. His personal choices have so isolated him that he feels terribly alone and disconnected. The two young people marrying on this day couldn't have asked for better families or feel more loved and tied to the community and people they care about most. And yet, so many in the world are like this lady's son - lost, lonely, longing. While they may have the other essentials of life on a daily basis, they are missing the one thing they need most: to be loved. 

Science studies have shown the tremendous impact of simple gestures of love like hugs on the human brain. The acts of affection have been proven to release beneficial chemicals in the brain that help to raise our mood, lower stress, and make us overall more productive and confident. All the medicines in the world can't hold a candle to the truth God said from the start: it's not okay for us to be by ourselves. We need others. More importantly, we need Him. Without either one, we wither and die like un-nourished plants. 

Love is the fertilizer of all human life. From it we get significance and purpose and happiness and growth in so many areas and even the beginning of our first heartbeat in the womb itself. Love is what keeps it going and this is why the Apostle Paul devoted nearly the entire chapter of 1 Corinthians 13 to describing what love looks like: patient, kind, kind, not envious, not boastful, not proud, not dishonoring to others, not self-seeking, not easily angered, doesn't keep a record of wrongs. It's why he also said, when listing the fruits of a Spirit-filled life in Galations 5:22-23 that the list begins with love. You can't have joy, patience, forbearance, kindness, gentleness, commitment, goodness, or self-control if love isn't at the center. The more you love and feel loved, the easier it is for all the other things to come along. 

Of course, the greatest evidence of love in all human history is the sacrifice of Christ Himself who, having it all and needing nothing (Acts 17:25), came to earth in the form of a helpless infant. Who, although He was fully God, became human just as we are and experienced all the things we do so that He could one day go the cross to forever defeat the forces of evil and sin and rise again on the third day, giving up hope of renewal and forgiveness. We may think we love someone enough to give our life to save theirs but to willingly endure the torture of a Roman crucifixion on behalf of the entire human race is, by far, the ultimate demonstration of love. And that is why, even when human love fails, the love that is of God never does. That's why, when we love one another with even the smallest semblance of His example, we come ever nearer to the kind of perfected state He intended from the beginning in Eden. Heaven touches earth just a tiny bit more. 

The world has narrowed our thinking into believing romantic love is of the highest good but what if I told you that, in the Greek culture, the divine love was considered the best? Even the most intimate of human relations couldn't even begin to come close to the kind of selfless, beautiful love that was reserved for the divine. The love of friendship, the love of lovers, the love of even things in the creation was still subservient to the love only the Divine could give. That is why it was so radical, and still is today, that Jesus commanded we love each other as He has loved us. Only a supernatural and spiritual grace could enable such a thing, however flawed and human. 

We venture out into the dark-cold of winter and light our sparklers as the bride and groom prepare to leave for their honeymoon. With cheers and best wishes for the lifetime of joy, we pierce the night and I am reminded once again that marriage, in all its human pleasure, is God's earthly picture to us of what He feels for us. We have been wooed and won over by an irresistible affection that only He can give, and we no longer have to live our lives detached from what gives us life and allows us to belong. And in the complex, sometimes messy, but still wonderful gift of community, God gives us a glimpse and a foretaste of what eternity will someday be.