A friend sent me this today and it was just too good not to pass on. From Surprised by Grace, Tullian Tchividjian:
“In Jesus, we also have all the affection we long for. The gospel rescues us from the fear of not being loved as well as our fear of loving. We all long to be loved and also to love. Men especially can become relatively sophisticated at suppressing those longings, in large part because they believe such things aren’t manly. And many women have been so hurt by someone in a past relationship that they now suppress their desire for love because trying to fulfill that desire is entirely too painful. Although our longing for love is such a fundamental part of our humanity, what we’ve discovered is that true love is downright dangerous. In The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis expresses this so insightfully:
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give you heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable…..The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.
Real love is risky. It opens us up to the possibility – even the likelihood – of intense emotional ache. So we suppress our longing for love and our willingness to love – which is why we all, to one degree or another, live clammed-up lives. Countless millions of people live in self-protective mode every day. They’re afraid to love and to be loved because they’re terrified of being taken. They’re desperately afraid of getting trampled, since all of us, to one degree or another, have been trampled in the past. This is why the world is such a cold place, so unfriendly. Our world lacks warmth because everyone’s looking out for themselves. But no one has to live a clammed-up life. This is the glorious freedom that the ongoing power of the gospel can bring. The gospel tells us first of all that we’re forever loved by Jesus. In fact, if we embrace all that he has done for sinners, then we’re assured that absolutely nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:39). Once we know that we’re forever loved by Jesus, we’re free to love others regardless of the risk, because our deep need to love will be satisfied.”
I hope and pray that we all know this great love in our short lives on earth.
