The Ultimate Eureka

Sometimes a person’s quest for love is played out for all of us to see.  I don’t mean in a movie and the big screen—that’s acting—I mean most everyone is told or shown or is somehow privy to what someone is going through relative to their quest for love.  You can probably think of some of those people. . .it’s not pretty.

Jim Morrison, the amazing lead singer of The Doors, a top band in the 1960’s until his drug-overdose death in 1971, played out before us and sang of his search for authentic love.  Through endless and momentary relationships that resulted in more than 20 paternity lawsuits against him, as well as tawdry newspaper headlines, magazine exposes, and more than 20 tell-all books written about what Morrison’s search looked like, he found only fragments of love, evidence, but not the love that gave him safety and rest, freedom to be himself all the time.

He wrote, “That’s what real love amounts to—letting a person be what he really is.  Most people love you for who you pretend to be.  To keep their love, you keep pretending—performing.  You get to love your pretense.  It’s true, we’re locked in an image—an act.”

If love is the greatest treasure, the most desirable and fulfilling gold we can possess because of what it does for us and to us, then every “Eureka!” every little discovery we have with each other is a vein leading to the source and treasure Himself.

It’s all over the New Testament, and 1 John 4:8 tells us specifically that God is love—He is the treasure we seek—and He is famously described to the love-confused Corinthians, and to the love-confused Jim Morrison, as well as to the love-confused Ralph Harris, and to you.  If you wonder how God, Love Himself, is with you, this is it: 

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”  (1 Corinthians 13:4-8a)
I’m thankful for the love I find in others, because it gives me a glimpse of what I’m really after.  But I no longer demand that their love equates with God’s love, nor do I confuse it as the end of my desire or the conclusion of my hunt—it isn’t the mother lode I once thought it was!  The source to which all of the little discoveries point is Jesus.  We’re entirely safe with Him, who loves us perfectly—no need to perform ever.  He is the “Ultimate Eureka” for which we search.

(This is a transcript of yesterday’s video, “The Ultimate Eureka,” and is for those who might rather read than watch.  To see the video, click http://youtu.be/qApostubk44, or simply scroll down this page.)