My wife is in Seattle, Washington for work. She works for Atlas Solutions, a division of Microsoft.
She is staying in one of the nicest hotels around--Hotel 1000. I miss her tremendously.
The small things that happen in marriage, are often the things that fail to be mentioned in either the public square, or in the church pew. Why is that? Why do we fail to speak about our loves?
Why are our hearts always set on buying, acquiring, gaining more information?
We all know what it is like to be in love. We all know what it is like to be loved, and to belong to someones heart. Why do we fail to speak about our loves in public, in private, and even with our ministers?
We must do a better job of this. We must, as women, speak with the whole world about our delights in watching our children play and our challanges at home--if that is your work. Men, we must speak about how much we miss our wives, our friends from college, our passions, our desires to climb mountains. I often think that the happiest people are those that are in the fields harvesting wheat, climbing mountains as guides, or those people simply going about their daily lives brewing coffee. Why do we fail to talk about the simple things in public, in the square of commerce, in schools, in our church's. Have we become to complex as a human race?
Certainly the internet can help us be more simple. Email is often used for quick notes, quick reminders, and quick gestures of love. Why not allow this to remind us that we are simple human beings. Why not admit that all we want is to love, and be loved?
Unfortunately, there is an answer to this.
Unfortunately, we have been set to toil the earth and to harvest its wheat.
This is our lot, as humans.
And ironically, we all must admit that there is something "more" than this on the horizon.
There is something more than gathering stones, gathering water, and killing beasts for meat.
Well, it is true. Our hearts are inclined for heaven. Heaven is the place where our toil will end, our relationships will truly begin, and we will be set free to worship God in truth.
We will eat together, with Jesus, around a large table.
We will have bodies.
In other words, we will have eyes to see. The dust of the earth, from which we are made, will come alive again.
The biloogists and the Christians will agree--everything is the dust--and then the Christians will say--and everything is animated with a spuernatural life that
put it all together and got it going. I know this is rambling, but, it all goes down to my wife.
I miss her. I can feel that in my bones. That will never go away. That will never end.
Love has no end. Love cannot be quenched. Love proves the reality of the supernatural.
Love ties the binds.
The converse is true. The person that is lonely, the person that is alienated, is by definition the person without love, and the person closest to touching the reality of hell.
People who are married can often find themselves lonely.
They can then substitute love with spouse, with love for a prostitute, love for a computer screen, or love with another guy in an airport stall.
This is merely covering over the root of the problem--loneliness.
I pray that any of you who are lonely, will come out of your cave.
I pray that any of you who are in love, will thank God for giving you the gift of His presence.
I pray for those locked up, in prison, that you will have courage and faith, to know that you are not alone.
Of all the things said about Jesus, both inside and outside Christendom, the thing that touches us the most, is his heart for the poor, and his heart for the downtrodden.
His heart is on fire for the lonely.
The lonely.
Are you one?
I am.
I truly am.
God's grace has turned me around, and now I can rejoice with my heavenly father in his presnce.
My Lord has given me a wife, two children, a family, nuclear, and extended, and so many other gifts. These gifts are to help me thank him, because the greatest enemy to the kingdom of God is loneliness.
I have felt lonely. I know how it can get. And God has set me free from that place.
I am not ashamed of the loneliness.
I am not ashamed of the God that rescued me.
Oh what a great God that we have.
He speaks this to Israel in the book of Hosea--
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