{"id":1479,"date":"2012-02-13T13:31:43","date_gmt":"2012-02-13T19:31:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/?p=1479"},"modified":"2012-02-13T13:31:43","modified_gmt":"2012-02-13T19:31:43","slug":"can-you-feel-the-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/2012\/02\/13\/can-you-feel-the-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Can you feel the love"},"content":{"rendered":"

Special Thanks The Hutchinson News for Publishing this article in February of 2012.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Welcome to the season of love!<\/p>\n

February is the time for heart-shaped cards, cheesy pickup lines, stale candy and crowded restaurants filled with dating dreams.<\/p>\n

Yet, far too often “love” leaves us anything but happy. We’re a culture of the depressed, detached and desperate.<\/p>\n

I remember Sunday School teaching that we are supposed to love with “JOY” – JESUS first, OTHERS second, YOURSELF last.<\/p>\n

So if we got the order right, we’d be all right.<\/p>\n

So, how’s that working out for you?<\/p>\n

Maybe the key to love isn’t putting God first.<\/p>\n

Maybe it’s loving Him, only.<\/p>\n

Genesis 29 contains one of the saddest love stories in human history. Let me compress the background for you:<\/p>\n

* Jacob loved Rachel.<\/p>\n

* Rachel loved Jacob.<\/p>\n

* Leah was Rachel’s not-so-pretty older sister.<\/p>\n

* Laban (Rachel and Leah’s dad) tricked Jacob into marrying Leah.<\/p>\n

* Jacob decided to put up with his unwanted bride if he could marry her sister, too.<\/p>\n

So here’s the love triangle: two sisters married to the same man, but the man only loves one of them. We’ve got more drama here than a high school cafeteria!<\/p>\n

Leah was unloved, yet love is what she wanted more than anything else.<\/p>\n

But God loved her.\u00a0He loved her more than she could understand.<\/p>\n

“When the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. And Leah conceived and bore a son.”<\/em><\/p>\n

From heaven above, God shouted down to Leah “I love you!” and blessed her with a child.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, her response shows that she is still looking for love in the all the wrong places (thank you, Waylon Jennings).<\/p>\n

“The Lord has looked upon my affliction; for now my husband will love me.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Obviously, the love of her God was not enough. She wouldn’t feel significant until she had this man’s love.<\/p>\n

God sent another love note in the form of child No. 2: “Because the Lord has heard that I am hated, he has given me this son, also.”<\/em><\/p>\n

You can almost hear her sigh of relief. She thought Jacob missed the first one, but he can’t miss a second crying baby.<\/p>\n

He missed it, and Leah became even more desperate.<\/p>\n

God shouted from heaven with a third child: “Now this time my husband will be attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Nope.<\/p>\n

Her addiction for this man’s love blinded her to the outstretched arms of the God who truly loved her.<\/p>\n

But then came a fourth child.<\/p>\n

Somewhere between the wailing of her three boys and the anticipation of the fourth’s birth, Leah had a revelation:<\/p>\n

She discovered she’d been chasing the wrong thing, that jerk might never love her, butGod loved her all along.<\/p>\n

Leah gave birth to a fourth son and named him Judah: “This time I will praise the Lord.”<\/em><\/p>\n

We don’t need to love God first –\u00a0we need to love Him only. Then, through the love of God in our lives, we can love a spouse, children, a calling or a cause the way they should be loved.<\/p>\n

This time, let’s love the Lord.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Special Thanks The Hutchinson News for Publishing this article in February of 2012.   Welcome to the season of love! February is the time for heart-shaped cards, cheesy pickup lines, stale candy and crowded restaurants filled with dating dreams. Yet, far too often “love” leaves us anything but happy. We’re a culture of the depressed, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Can you feel the love”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1479"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1482,"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479\/revisions\/1482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}