All You Need Is Love?

There are two kinds of heartache you are likely to experience in this world. The first kind is awful, terrible, horrible but -- in the end -- it is bearable. It is the kind of heartache that pulls us closer together. You see this when a loved one dies, and the family draws tighter together than ever before. We're seeing this kind of heartache among those who have lost all their earthly belongings in the wake of Katrina. Families, churches, entire communities are drawing closer together and providing support for one another to get through the heartache that they are all enduring.

But there is another kind of heartache that is far worse than any other. It is the heartache and pushes us farther apart. The heartache of divorce. The heartache of severed relationships is a pain that lingers far longer than any other.

Why should this be so? I think it's because this second kind of heartache is further outside of God's will for humanity. God has set out to create community -- a group of people rightly related to him and rightly relating to themselves and others. Anything that tears at the fabric of God's community goes against his will. What God has brought together, let no one put asunder.

Question: Did David love Absalom?

I think it's obvious that he did. He wept over the death of Absalom and cried out how he wished he had died instead. The problem is that sometimes love isn't enough. That is, if you define love as a strong emotional feeling, then it is not right to say all we need is love.

Feeling love isn't enough. Love has to actually do something for it to be enough. And sometimes even then....