Most singles react to Valentine's in one of the following ways:
- Branding it a commercial holiday that's really all about selling tacky heart-plastered merchandise rather than love
- To state their independence and declare to the world that they don't need a significant other to feel special
- Having a night spent watching romantic films with Ben & Jerry, pining for the Valentine's Day to come when they'll have their special someone sat beside them on the couch.
I think that, since the time I realised that boys weren't just for playing sports with, I have probably reacted in all three of these ways at some stage. All I wanted was for someone I liked to let me know that I was special to them, and Valentine's Day was just a painful reminder that that someone wasn't in my life yet.
Since coming to university, God has been teaching me more about who He is and how I can trust Him with everything; my family, my future, my feelings. He has taught me that He is worth trusting, and that only through trusting Him completely and surrendering all of these things to Him can I have His peace, peace that passes all human understanding. And why can I trust Him? Because through His Word, the Bible, and by His faithfulness towards me all my life, He has shown me that He loves me.
This February 14th I won't be moping about, feeling sorry for myself because I don't have someone to share it with. Ultimately, Valentine's Day is about Love, and God has shown me the most perfect love that I will ever have. Throughout my life He has pursued me, just as He pursues you, relentlessly showing me that He loves me and asking me to love Him back.
Just like in The Notebook, when Noah climbs up onto a ferris wheel just to show Ally that he likes her and relentlessly pursues a date with her, God has saught after my heart, proving again and again that He loves me completely.
In the Bible, it often makes use of the imagery of a marriage to demonstrate our relationship with God. God loves us and pursues a relationship with us, ultimately proving His that love by sending His son to die for our sins, and we're just not interested. We tell Him that He's not needed, that we're not interested in anything involving serious committment, that we just want to have fun, that there's someone or something else in our lives right now that is more important. Sometimes we just think that we're not good enough for Him and so we can't accept what He's offering us- His eternal love.
One of my favourite books of the bible with regards to this is Ephesians. In chapter 5 it talks about the relationship that a man and wife should have in a marriage, by using Christ's love for His bride, the Church, as an example:
"Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her..." Ephesians 5:22-25
Husbands should be willing to die for their wives, and wives should live for their husbands, just as Christ died for the church and we are called to live our lives for Him. In chapter 1, it talks about how, when we come to Christ and accept His offer, we are "sealed with the Holy Spirit":
"In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory." Ephesians 1:13-14
I like to think of the Holy Spirit like our engagement ring to Christ. We have accepted His proposal, and He has given us His Holy Spirit as a sign of our promise to one another, until He returns and takes His bride home to be with Him forever.
As a Christian, I still don't get it right all the time- far from it. I wonder from God and try to do things my own way in my own time, not trusting Him and His sovreignty. Sometimes I am downright disobedient and turn my back on His will. But it doesn't matter how many times or how badly I let Him down, He promises to never let me go, He has forgiven me and He loves me with a perfect love that looks past my imperfections because of the price that Jesus paid on the cross for me.
God has shown me the greatest love story ever known, and given me the chance to be a part of it. This Valentine's, I can celebrate the love that I have through my Saviour Christ Jesus and praise the God of all creation who loved me enough to pay the ultimate price so that I could be with Him forever. That doesn't mean I don't look forward to a day where I can share a Valentine's Day with my beloved, or that I won't sometimes wish that he was with me now, but I can have confidence that he will come in God's time and that God's plan for me is going to be so much more amazing than any love story that I could come up with. I'm not afraid to be honest with you, sometimes I do feel like that day will never come; I think that there must be something wrong with me because no one seems to show any interest or pay any attention to me; that I'm not pretty or talented enough.
But God has never told me that.
He shows me in the Bible that He has and will provide me with everything I have and ever will need, that I am fearfully and wonderfully made, and that He will fulfil the desires of my heart as I delight in Him. All I need to do is trust Him.
God wants you to be a part of this story. He's pursuing you and asking you to love Him back and accept His offer of eternal salvation through Jesus Christ. He's down on one knee, offering you everything that you will ever need. What will you say this Valentine's; yes or no?
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