Love

Celebrating our 56th anniversary and Mothers Day this past weekend has had me thinking a lot about love. I Corinthians 13:13 says that the greatest thing is love. God is love and love is greater than anything else in the world today.

The message of this story is that when we are prosperous, we underrate Love. When we feel important, we do not appreciate love. And even in happiness and sorrow we overlook love. Only with time do we realize the true value of love. Why wait to cherish Love every day of your life? The one who is rich with something, shares it with others.

A woman came out of her house and saw 3 old men with long white beards sitting in her front yard. She did not recognize them. She said, “I don’t think I know you, but you must be hungry. Please come in and have something to eat.”

“Is the man of the house home?”, they asked.
“No”, she said. “He’s out.”
“Then we cannot come in”, they replied.

In the evening when her husband came home, she told him what had happened.
“Go tell them I am home and invite them in!”

The woman went out and invited the men in.
“We do not go into a House together,” they replied.
“Why is that?” she wanted to know.

One of the old men explained: “His name is Wealth,” he said pointing to one of his friends, and said pointing to another one, “He is Success, and I am Love.” Then he added, “Now go in and discuss with your husband which one of us you want in your home.”

The woman went in and told her husband what was said. Her husband was overjoyed.
“How nice!!”, he said. “Since that is the case, let us invite Wealth. Let him come and fill our home with wealth!”

His wife disagreed. “My dear, why don’t we invite Success?”

Their daughter-in-law was listening from the other corner of the house. She jumped in with her own suggestion: “Would it not be better to invite Love? Our home will then be filled with love!”

“Let us heed our daughter-in-law’s advice,” said the husband to his wife. “Go out and invite Love to be our guest.”

The woman went out and asked the 3 old men, “Which one of you is Love? Please come in and be our guest.”

Love got up and started walking toward the house. The other 2 also got up and followed him. Surprised, the lady asked Wealth and Success: “I only invited Love, Why are you coming in?”

The old men replied together: “If you had invited Wealth or Success, the other two of us would’ve stayed out, but since you invited Love, wherever He goes, we go with him. Wherever there is Love, there is also Wealth and Success!”

Our most natural desire is to feel needed and loved. Everyone needs Love. The tragic reality is that most of us don’t know what real love or friendship looks like, and so we spend a lifetime living with a shadow of the real thing. So we do whatever we can to win that love from others. From birth to death we are on an eternal search for love. When we find it, our desire not to lose it causes us to do crazy things. We’re constantly wondering whether they still like/love us. And when we think they don’t, we get all caught up wondering why and beating ourselves (or them) up about it. Our willingness to cultivate an intimate love relationship with God is directly related to our ability to have a rich and meaningful love relationship with another person.