So, listening to 90’s R&B yesterday evening has got me in my feelings and thinking about the blissful allure of an intense, all-consuming, never-ending love that characterized our music. And, sometimes I think I want that, but I’ve learned to ask, “Is that really good?” Is the way I want to be loved healthy?

If I can be real for just a second, I will admit that I sometimes struggle with wanting to be the center of my wife’s universe. But I know that isn’t good because I lack the “weight” or kabad to hold everything in her universe together. Being the center of her universe puts me in a position to do something I’m not built for -to sustain someone else’s existence forever. Conversely, it puts my wife in a position to be sustained by something that will surely fail (even if I were perfect, I have to die at some point). Apply even a little Bible and you’ll quickly find that my looking to be central to another: to be exalted and worshiped, isn’t love. 1 Corinthians 13:4-5, “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil…”

To be blunt the love trumpeted by most music is promoting idolatry -a diversion of attention to someone or something else for what we should be getting from God.

So, what SHOULD we want? Answer: an intense, all-consuming, never-ending love with the only one who can deliver it -God. I believe the first step in really enjoying love is to be completely satisfied with Him -alone. Only then, can we really love or be loved by others, because if God is love (1 John 4:8), to love is to share God. And, for that He has to be central.