Being in love is a state heralded by poets, songwriters, and authors. Hollywood makes hundreds of movies a year about being in love. There are websites dedicated to finding your true love and books detailing how to find love, keep love, and restore love.
Love is a many splendored thing. All you need is love. What the world needs now is love sweet love. Can’t help falling in love….I could go on. So could you, I’m sure.
We love love. And we should. It IS a wonderful state. The state of being in love is one of the wonderful gifts God gives us humans, one of the great joys we get to experience this side of heaven.
BUT (you knew that was coming, right?) love makes people crazy. Seriously. There are even scientific studies behind it – something to do with chemicals in the brain. We can’t stop thinking about that special someone, can’t stop talking about him. Everything about him is wonderful – the way he smiles, the way he laughs, his scent…You could be with him forever and never get tired of gazing into his eyes and speaking tender words of love. You are, as Flower says in “Bambi”, ‘twitterpated.’
And it’s perfectly fine to be ‘twitterpated.’ God gave us those chemicals, created those feelings. But we need to be careful not to go blindly into love. Solomon, in his Song, says, several times, “Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.”
When we are falling in love with the guy God has chosen for us, it is beautiful, exciting. I look back on the two years Dave and I dated with great fondness. I was a crazy fool, and it was awesome.
But when we allow ourselves to fall in love with anyone other than God’s choice for us, there is no end but heartache. And the road leading to that heartache is filled with decisions we regret, friends we lose, parents and teachers we ignore. It is filled with a whole bunch of incredibly destructive crazy.
So how do we make sure we choose God’s man? We must first fall crazy in love with Jesus. I’m talking want-to-spend-all-your-time-with-him, can’t-get-enough, I-want-to-tell-the-whole-world INSANE about the Savior. Your relationship with Him should be strong, solid, growing and maturing. THEN you are ready to consider allowing a young man into your heart and life.
As my pastor’s wife says, “You just keep running hard after Jesus. As you’re running, look to your right and left. The man who’s running beside you or ahead of you – that’s the one for you.”
