Why Do We Seek for Love in All the Wrong Places?

“For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.” — Kahlil Gibran

Was It Wrong to Have Given Everything for Love?

We’ve heard so many people warn us that we shouldn’t love like that, that we should reserve some love for ourselves just in case. It seemed practical, but it certainly didn’t sound romantic.

If love is like that, what’s the use of it? How could it be love? And so we ignored these things and we fell in love, and then our hearts got broken and we remembered everything they told us about.

Was it wrong to have given up everything in the name of love?

The answer is yes and no

We’re not wrong to think that love should be all-consuming and that we dare sacrifice everything for it. It’s the people and things we gave our hearts to that’s wrong because only God deserves such a kind of love.

“ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. A second likewise is this, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’”
( Matthew 22:37–39, WEB-BE)

Our love for God should be first

Our love for others, even our most beloved, should only be second. Why? Because people are not perfect. No matter how much we love others, we still fail sometimes, we still hurt those whom we love the most.

Expecting perfect things from imperfect people isn’t romantic, it’s unrealistic.

The reason we need to be guided first by our love for God is that God’s love should be able to fill us first. If not, we crave love so much that nobody on earth could realistically be able to give it to us.

Nobody could stay with us 24 hours a day. Even our partners would certainly have something else to do. Nobody could enjoy the same things with us all the time. We’d have different interests and different ways of spending our days. We’d have different ways of expressing love, and of receiving it. Most of all, nobody could fully read our hearts.

Only God knows the deepest yearnings of our soul, and only He could fulfill them.

Giving up everything for imperfect people is actually not being able to give them the best you could possibly give them. The best that we could give others is the best of who we are, and who else knows how to achieve our best than God?

“Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you… You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.”
— Saint Augustine of Hippo