Do you feel the love?

I hate Valentine’s day.

The forced expression of love through the purchase of flowers, candy, and a card does not make any sense. Going out to eat on Valentine’s day is so painfully difficult, that in my opinion, the loving thing to do is to stay home.

Why do we do this? To make up for neglecting our relationships the rest of the year?

What my wife really wants and needs is for me to express my love through my words and actions every day of the year. There will be special moments when we celebrate each other in special ways. But these celebrations mean nothing without the reaffirming love experienced the rest of the year.

My true love for her is shown in kissing her good bye every morning before I go to work, not out of habit, but out of the sense that I miss her as soon as I leave. In helping her with the dirty dishes and the laundry. When the kids are sick and throw up on the floor and wall right next to the toilet. I express love for her when I sit and listen to her share her heart to me about what is going on in her life. When she tells me her passions, her desires, her worries, her fears, her needs. And then I get to respond. That is love.

This is what we all want out of a relationship, yet, with God, we treat him like a valentine. We pick one day a week, or several special holidays a year and we buy him chocolate, and sign a Hallmark card, and wait in line to eat for hours, just because we have not been telling him we love him the rest of the year.

We go to church Sunday morning and we offer up worship that we had to put together at the last second because we did not think much about it before hand. We give God picked over flowers that we found at Krogers on our way home from work that are wilting and only last a few short days. Often I neglect God and then hope that he feels the love when I do show up.

Loving God is about having a relationship with him. It is about spending time with him by reading about him and in prayer. It is about sharing the love we have experienced from him with other people who need it, a love that is not deserved and gives beyond what is expected.

If we spend time with God, if we talk to him about our passions, our desires, our worries, our fears, and our needs, then our relationship will develop and then we will know him and love him.

Even if we offer wilted flowers, he takes them, not because the gift is so nice, but because his love is perfect, and even cheap presents are a delight to him, and he will not stop loving us.