- Morning Devotional
- August 30, 2003
- "Somebody, Somewhere,
Love Me"
- by Don Emmitte
And
I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can't, and
life can't. The angels can't, and the demons can't. Our fears for today, our
worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can't keep God's love away.
Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all
creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed
in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Romans 8:38-39 NLT).
In 1963, the United States Supreme Court outlawed prayer in America's public schools. One of the plaintiffs in that case was America's best-known and most visible atheist, Madalyn Murray O'Hair. Over the years, she was a vocal proponent of atheism and an aggressive campaigner against religion in public life. Then one day she vanished, leaving her sports car in an airport parking lot and $500,000 missing from the American Atheists Association bank account. Her disappearance still remains an unsolved mystery. The Internal Revenue Service seized Mrs. O'Hair's home to pay her creditors and some back taxes. One of the items at auction was her diary. And one entry said, "The whole idiotic hopelessness of human relations descends upon me. Tonight, I cried and cried, but even then feeling nothing." I was really struck by four words that Madalyn Murray O'Hair reportedly wrote at least half a dozen times over the years, "Somebody, somewhere, love me."
In a way, her cry is the cry of every human heart. "Somebody, somewhere, love me." And for many that do believe in God, there is still that awful vacuum. It's possible to believe in God, to do God's things, and to still miss the deep experience of His love. And without that love, the emptiness and loneliness in our heart is never satisfied, no matter how many human loves we experience. While you may be nowhere near an atheist, it could be that you've invested a lot in good things that could easily become other gods: your career, your children, your projects, your friends, your charity work, your spiritual pursuits. But the deep, aching sense of aloneness seldom seems to go away. Every earth-love has ultimately either failed you or failed to satisfy you. So, after all these years, your heart is still whispering, maybe even shouting, "Somebody, somewhere, love me."
Our reading today describes the only love that can ever truly answer this deepest cry of the human heart. It is unconditional love, immeasurable love, that God wants you to experience. It is more than you can imagine, so much so that He sacrificed the One He loves the most for you, His one and only Son, Jesus. The reason we are missing that love is because we've pushed God out of our lives with our sin. We've lived "my way" instead of God's way, over and over again. And that has left us separated from God and His love with a death penalty on our heads. But God just lavished His love on you by sending Jesus to die in your place. Jesus is the "Somebody, somewhere" that your heart has been lonely for. And you don't have to live one more day without His love. Turn to Him today and be lavished with His love. He is the somebody who will love you right where you are!