Sweet Lie #1

"All you need is love."
1 needy person + 1 needy person = 1 complete person


Humans are created to love and be loved. God intended for His creation to live in family and be loved by Him and each other. The creation story tells of a time when God would have an evening walk with Adam and Eve. Just walking together, sharing the day, noticing the plants and animals and beauty as they shared their lives together. We all know where that ended. Human beings were removed from walking with God and the First Testament and New Testament are the stories of God fixing our mess to walk with us again.

Now, all the love God created to be shared is screened through human brokeness; self centeredness became a hallmark of the human experience and self centeredness influences the human need for love and the human desire to love.

My daughters taught me this simple equation that really got my attention.

1 needy person + 1 needy person = two needy people

We all need and desire human love, but when do we get enough? There seems to be a huge hole in the heart of humans. If humans need love and need to be filled with love, yet we leak all the love given away, how can we ever have enough? There is no way any human can fill the heart of the typical human with enough love to get them through life. Why? They need loving in the midst of giving love and they can never be full of love themselves. The human condition makes it impossible to get and give enough love.

RLP struggles not only with his faith, but with love.

RLP is honest with himself and with others. Even as a man of faith he struggles with this idea that human love can fill the need and fix our condition. How many of us as people of faith still look to the love of others to meet a need in our life? I do. I am disappointed many times as people do not love me the way I want or need. But I fail in loving these very same people. I am a son, but my love has failed. I am a brother, but my love has failed. I am a husband, but my love has failed. I am a father, but my love has failed. I am a whatever, but my love has failed.
The very thing I want and need from others is the very thing I cannot provide for them. Why? My human love flows through a man who is human, therefore; it is permeated with failure, that failure is what the old time preachers called sin and it still is.

My experiemce tells me that all humans in my life will fail me in the very thing I want and need from them...LOVE. As a man of faith, I have found the only thing that has not failed me is the nagging, annoying, ever present love of God and that love is expressed to me in the life and story of Jesus Christ. Take it of leave, the only love that has never failed me is the love of a man who lived, loved, died and defeated death two thousand years ago.

Human love may have been the answer to all human problems in the simple mind of John Lennon, but in the real world, human love DOES NOT fix all the problems with human hearts nor the world at large.


(HT: Katy, WVA)