We imagine what it will look like, what it will feel like and like Pip, in the Dickens novel, how it will change our lives. Expectations however can often lead to fantasy, or blind us to reality and truth...leaving us wondering " what happened"?
So often real love is right next to us.....unrecognizable and hidden in a form we have not conceived. We desire passion and God sends perseverance, we look for beauty and He sends faithfulness, we search for significance and he sends rejection & persecution...we miss the opportunity to "know" what love really is.
Without Gods wisdom, understanding and truth - our love becomes self seeking and repeats the mistakes of history. Self love is deceptive and cunning, always needing more but never satisfied....seeking only for itself.
Self love is what justifies inordinate personal indulgences while people die of preventable diseases and hunger, the killing of unborn children while claiming the right to ones own "pro-choice", the raping of young girls and women because "they asked for it", and killing your neighbor because they are a different race, religion or tribe.
Sometimes self love and our desire to have "what we want" the "way we want it" simply lead to misdirected choices that rob us of achieving our full potential..... and a future that would have been greater than all our expectations.
Looking back, I agree with the words from an old song that say "I really don't know love at all".... but looking forward, and clinging tighter to Jesus, I realize I haven't missed my chance.
