Every person has two fundamental needs: to be loved, and to matter.
To be loved
Being loved is accomplished beautifully by God Himself. He saved us from something, for something. And the for something is to love us consummately through all the ages of eternity.
His glory is to love and satisfy the saints, satiating them with Himself forever. Thrilling them forever. At His right hand are pleasures forevermore.
No human being can ever give us this kind of love. Even those who love us deeply will sometimes disappoint us; none can meet every need or unspoken expectation. This is true of our spouses, our offspring, our extended relatives. Our work peers. Our pastors and congregations. Our neighbors. Our friends.
So, we don’t ask human relationships to bear the full weight of our deepest needs. We look to God for the love only He can give, and are satisfied there.
In loving others, we begin to understand something of what His love takes. We experience its cost and its beauty ourselves. And our wonder deepens: How does He love so perfectly, so profoundly, so aptly, so deeply?
Our response is worship.
To matter
Without meaning, something in the human soul begins to shrivel.
We need goals. We need personal excitements that get us out of bed in the morning, even if they are tiny ones. We need to keep growing in skills and knowledge, in activities and relationships that mean something to us. Things that are progressive, developmental, and satisfying.
We shall have work in heaven. Adam and Eve had meaningful work in the Garden even before the Fall.
It is as though our Heavenly Father says: Take dominion! Pick up the hoe. I made you for purposeful work, for growth, for tending what I have entrusted to you.
Growing into what God made us to be energizes us like nothing else can. It is oxygen to the soul. It scratches the divine itch right there, at the center of our existence.
It is God-like to re-create.
Like a gardener tending a rose among thorns, we can nurture what is beautiful without pretending the thorns are absent. We are loved by God, and we have meaningful work before us: to grow, to tend, to create, and to love.
Two gems about love
“Love is the fairest flower that survived the fall.”
Found in a 1910 book of quotations; original attribution unconfirmed.
“Real love implies there is more where that came from.”
