With Valentine’s Day last weekend, love is in the air, or at least in everyone’s hearts. I have a slight problem with Valentine’s Day though. Amidst the hustle and bustle of Valentine’s Day, we lose sight of what’s really important. In other words, the excitement of giving heart-shaped boxes of chocolate and fancy flowers to the person we “love” distracts us from a more significant type of love we should be concerning ourselves with: God’s love.

Love is one of those things we all desire for ourselves; we all want to be loved. And when we don’t have that certain somebody in our lives to love us in the greedy way we want, we get sad. Valentine’s Day is probably one of the most disliked holidays by all single people for that very reason. The truth is, this society is too obsessed with romantic love. We live in a love-saturated culture in which finding true love is the most important thing in our lives.

Well then here’s a treat, because, boy, do I have a message to share.

Finding true love is the most important thing in life. True unconditional, never-ending love is what we should want, but it doesn’t come from a romantic relationship. It comes from our Heavenly Father. It comes from Jesus Christ.

God sent Jesus to die on the cross so that we could be saved from our sins. This is the foundantion of understanding love…

We spend our entire lives looking for love in the wrong places. Love has been right in front of us the whole time. From the moment we were created, to right now, and to even after we die, God loves us. And guess what, He loves a lot. In fact, He sent his one and only son to die on the cross for us. That’s how much he loves us.

Imagine if your best friend chose to die so that you could be saved. Now imagine a parent willingly giving up their only child for the sake of others. That’s love. A box of chocolates and a dozen red roses can’t compete with that.

God sent Jesus to die on the cross so that we could be saved from our sins. This is the foundation of understanding love, or at least agape love. In fact, God is love. The only way to experience the awesome comfort and security of love is to know God, to have a relationship with Him. Whereas romantic love is never guaranteed, God’s love is always guaranteed. It’s always there for the taking, because God is always there.

So why do we even need God’s love in the first place?

Without Him in our lives there is always something missing; we will always be searching for something we can’t get on our own; we will always be thirsty. The thing about love is. as humans. we are not capable of loving another person in the way God loves us, it doesn’t come close. But when God is a part of our life, when we accept him, and accept that Jesus died for us, a type of love enters into us that is stronger than any love we can ever feel. And the cool thing is that you can then spread that love onto others.

When we feel the love God has for us, our perspective changes. When we understand His love, to the extent we can understand it, we then see His love in others. When God is a part of our lives, He works through us and uses us to spread some of His love onto others. It is in this way the phrase “love is an expression of understanding,” makes sense.

If there’s one thing I want everyone to take away from this article it’s this: God loves you, always has, and always will.

If there’s a second thing I want you to take away from this article it’s this: God’s love is very present here at Gustavus. He is here and He wants us to experience His love by being a part of the Gustavus faith-based community.

So the next time Valentine’s Day rolls around, don’t just celebrate romantic love, celebrate a more important type of love. If we choose to do view Valentine’s Day in this way, then everyday becomes Valentine’s Day. Every day becomes a day in which we are all loved. That sounds pretty good, does it not?

-Colin Rieke