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We live in a world where people use someone else for their own personal pleasure. When that pleasure is gone, they move on to someone else. A colleague of mine always used to nervously straighten up and apply her make-up before going home to her husband. She feared him leaving her — again — and wanted to pass his inspection. It wasn’t enough; he moved out for another woman. Have you felt that pain of rejection from a parent, friend or spouse? Do you have to hide part of who you are to be acceptable to others?
It doesn’t have to be that way.
Late one August afternoon, 75-year-old Dorothy finally got her one chance of the day to water-ski and gracefully rose out of the water on her first try while her husband Marvin steered the boat.
Only a few years later, Marvin walked very slowly with a walker or cane. Dorothy slumped her weary, medicated body in her chair, her white head bobbing sleepily while a high-pitched, rodent-repelling whining noise filled their ears.
A tragedy of old age? Hardly! Yes, it’s sad to see someone you love suffering. The Bible tells us, “The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (Romans 8:22). That’s the horrible effect of our sin and disobedience to God. But there’s more to Marvin and Dorothy’s story than that — and more to ours too. A caregiver, watching Marvin sitting day after day by his wife’s side, hearing him call her “honey,” and watching him painfully walk over to serve her every need, said, “I wish I had someone to love me like that!” Who wouldn’t crave a love that keeps on flowing our way when we have nothing to give back?
We do have someone who loves us like that!
Marvin learned to love his wife from his Saviour Jesus Christ. “God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). We’ve all done many acts of disobedience to God. One, just one, “little” lie deserves punishment by a righteous God who hates sin, and “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). But God loved us when there was nothing in us to attract His love. Marvin said, not that he was living a tragedy, but that God was using his situation as part of His plan to show a love that flows from God to people like us who don’t deserve it. “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Will you receive, as Marvin has, the only Saviour of sinners like yourself ?
