Sometimes I fear we are like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind. Throughout the entire story, Rhett Butler tried to win her heart, but Scarlett was smitten by the milquetoast Ashley Wilkes. Finally, as the story comes to a close, Rhett walks away in frustration. “I feel sorry for you, Scarlett,” he declares. “You are throwing away love with both hands and grabbing for that which will never love you.”
As I watched the movie, I kept thinking, Doesn’t she see how much Rhett really loves her? He’d move heaven and earth to please her, if she would but let him. Why is she going after someone who would never make her truly happy? And we are Scarlett, ignoring the only one who can make us truly happy and chasing after figments of our imagination…things that will never make us happy—milquetoast lovers who pale in the shadow of the Lover of our soul.
Of course, in the end, Scarlett realizes her love for Rhett and runs home to tell him so. But it is too late. As with most analogies, this one has a fatal flaw: Jesus will never throw up his hands and walk away. “Here I am!” Jesus says. “I stand at the door and knock” (Revelation 3:20).
~Excerpted from A Sudden Glory by Sharon Jaynes
Adam and Eve had everything they could possibly want there in the garden that God lovingly provided. But they believed the lie of Satan that there was more to be had; if they would just ditch God and take matters into their own hands.
Mankind has followed suit ever since spending our time and resources chasing after love and joy and peace in all the things that can’t really provide it.
The deepest, truest longing in our soul is for the kind of love and acceptance that only God can provide. Everything else in life and everyone else comes in a distant second place.
And yet we keep pursuing second place things and people to try to fill that void. Like Scarlett we chase after imitation love when the real thing is offered to us in Christ Jesus by the grace of God.
May we give ourselves today to be embraced by the Lover of our souls.
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© Richard Alvey and iLife Journey, 2012. All rights reserved.
A ragamuffin in awe of God's grace and glory... pursuing real life in Jesus.
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