When Love Doesn’t Feel So Secure

I listen to a lot of music. All through my workday, I have a mix of classical and jazz softly playing. When I work outside, it’s a mix of everything else from every decade imaginable. The most common theme I hear in all this music is tied to love. If I took a survey, most people would say the most common theme in music is love. Everyone loves a love song.

If there is a common sub-theme in love songs it is the feeling of heartbreak and lost love. Whether it’s Adele singing “Someone Like You,” The Righteous Brothers with “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” Roy Orbison’s “Crying,” or Al Jolson crooning “All Alone,” every genre and every generation has songs of heartbreak and lost love.

It’s odd, but when people experience a breakup—whether a divorce or the loss of a boyfriend/girlfriend—they often find comfort in those songs of heartbreak. Someone is expressing how they themselves feel. They find comfort in that shared sadness.

Everybody loves the romantic notion of a love that never dies, but I daresay most people look at love with a sense of insecurity. I am referring to more than the small group of engaged couples who create legal prenuptial agreements “in case it doesn’t work out.” Many of us have seen what we thought was a strong, loving relationship dissipate when someone said, “I don’t love you anymore” or “I found someone else.”

If you’ve ever experienced such heartbreak, you know the feeling of insecurity that can accompany love. We can be blindsided when love goes away. Consequently, when love comes knocking again, we open the door cautiously. We don’t want to get hurt again.

If this describes you, know this: You are loved by God. Unequivocally. It is one of the surest statements you’ll ever hear, but it is God’s nature to love you. He cannot not love you! You can bank on this unchanging truth of God’s character: God is love (1 John 4:8).

If you’re resting your sense of security or identity on someone else, stop.  Even the best human with the best intentions is imperfect. I love my wife deeply, but I still have moments I let her down. I am inconsistent. If my wife was solely relying on my love for her, she’d experience disappointment. And someday I’ll die. If all she has is my love, where will that leave her?

But God is both loving and eternal. He “does not change like shifting shadows” (Jas. 1:17). You can trust and rely on His love because you can rely on Him. The world may live with insecurity about how much they are really loved, but in Christ, we can rest secure. We are loved—deeply and completely.

From a position of resting in God’s love, we can reflect that love to others. Just as God in Christ loves us, we can love others. If they don’t respond in kind and reciprocate with love, we’re OK because we are still resting securely in God’s love.

Romans 8 has to be my favorite chapter in the Bible. I often quote the latter part of this chapter, and it bears repeating again:

Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?… No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:35,37-39).

There is no greater security than a relationship with Christ. Rest in that. Rest in His love—and reflect that love to others. Others are dealing with their own insecurities related to being loved. Let God use you to show them His unchanging, unflinching love.

Related post: Misunderstanding the Love of God

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This post supports the study “Sure of God’s Love” in Bible Studies for Life and YOU.

Podcast

Join Lynn Pryor and Chris Johnson as they discuss this topic:

http://ministrysites.s3.amazonaws.com/podcasts/bsfl_adults/BSFL_ADULTS_Fal21_U1S5.mp3