What Does Love Look Like (Arms Wide Open)

What does love, real love look like?  Everyone is seeking love, they want to love and be loved.  But as the song says they are "Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places."  Love is sought in what people and the world has to offer.  Both options fall severely short of the love mark.  The world does not offer true and lasting love and people will never perform to our expectations.

A very popular book series, called 50 Shades, was a number one seller for numerous months.  Because of the popularity of this erotica genre other similar books started coming out to capture the insanity of this craze.  There was even an erotica movie released called Magic Mike.  Tons of women, christian women included flocked to these books and the movie and this saddened me.  I realized that these women were looking for love, and not real love at that, in some pretty warped places.

What made this genre so popular?  Were women not happy with what they had?  For those who were married, did they not find love and acceptance from their husbands?  What makes people run after a fantasy type of love?  Could they not accept or feel the love of God and other's in their life so they sought other sources?

I have never read 50 Shades nor seen Magic Mike but I have heard enough about both and have read parts of a manuscript that speaks out against 50 Shades to understand a little about both of these topics.  It is not easy for me to write this because it makes me very sad to know that women would want a man to dominate them, chain and whip them all in the name of love.  God's love is not painful, nor should our love towards each other be painful.  Jesus was beaten, rejected, and crucified on the cross so we could enjoy life and enjoy it to its fullest.

If we fully grasped how deep God's love is for us (Eph 3: 17-19) then I believe we would not seek the love the world has to offer.  We would be able to love ourselves, accept the love God has to offer, and be able to accept the love of others no matter if they do not perform to our expectations.

I went back to a book I have been reading this week, called Pursued by Jud Whilite (sorry it does not come out until Feb 2013).    He stated that "we need to open our hearts and let God love us  and that God's love is a loyal love that points to the future."  If we open our hearts to receive God's love then we will begin to love ourselves and accept the love others have to offer.  When we do this God will begin to reveal His great plans to us as Jer 29:11 states.

Take it from one who knows.  For many years of my life I knew God loved me but I did not realize that love to it's fullest.  Growing up I felt very unwanted and unloved because of my unstable home environment.  The adults in my life were consummed with their own issues and not necessarily to the issues of those around them.  It took many years for me to realize I was really and truly loved, others loved me and God loved me.  It was a lightbulb moment!  Years after that I was able to accept that not only did God love me He chose me!  What an awesome concept.  God not only loved me He wanted me.  The same is true for everyone.  God loves and chooses YOU!

50 Shades and Magic Mike offer a fleshy passionate type of love that does not satisfy and can never satisfy.  Only God's love can ever truly satisfy.  Let us become consumed and overwhelmed by God, let us stop pursuing illicit love affairs with the world and begin a beautiful love affair with the creator of the world.

I know you all would be terribly disappointed if I did share a song to go with what God laid on my heart to blog about.  This blog was not an easy one to find a song for.  I went through a great selection of songs before finally realizing that Arms Wide Open by Misty Edwards was the perfect song for this blog.  May this bless you greatly.