Everyone Wants to Be Loved

Everyone wants to be loved–to be cared for, thought of kindly, smiled upon, approved of, praised as worthy.

Everyone wants to be loved. It is the universal spiritual need that stares us all in the face. When our eyes meet, we witness simultaneously the same longing ache that we see when we peer into a looking glass and see the loneliness reflected in our own two wells of tears.

Everyone wants to be loved. We spend much of our lives searching for “the one”–the one who can fill that longing. A cosmic vacuum exists in the human heart, and no one is there to fill its aching need for love.

And there is only one earthly organism on the planet that is specifically designed to channel the kind of love that we all need. Only one being on earth that is capable of loving another the exact way that they want to be loved. And that is the human being.

We are all human. So then, why can’t we simply meet the need and fill the vacuum and just love everyone?

Someone will say, Well, I love people. Yet, Christ tells us, “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.” Whoa. You mean we are to love everyone? He continues, “But love your enemies, and do good…and your reward shall be great, and you shall be the children of the Highest” [1].

Everyone wants to be loved. But natural man has an irrational fear of rejection. It is irrational because  even a two year old teaches us its folly as they unconditionally embrace us and drown us with wet kisses. They have no fear of rejection, for innately they know that everyone wants to be loved.

So what happens to us? After our brief taste of the victory of fearless love as toddlers, what prevents us from giving what everyone wants?

If we can agree that the Creator made us this way–both with the need for love and the capacity to selflessly channel it–then we must realize that He has made a way for us to do it–to be the riverbeds of the living waters of the love from above that will fill the vacuum.

God is this love–this agape love. He through His Spirit will flow this selfless love and help us fulfill our destiny as His conduits, channeling His love to those who need it. For everyone wants to be loved.

The Price

But to be one of the “children of the Highest” who will love everyone like their Father does, there is a price to be paid. It costs something. And we should “count the cost,” as He admonished us to do [2].

It costs us our old life and all of our allegiances to the people and things we deemed important. And to pay the cost, we must bear our own cross and follow Him.

How do we do that? We must let our old spiritual heart die with the Son of God on His cross. We must die with Him, be buried with Him, and be resurrected with Him. This happens when we believe that God raised up Christ from the grave. We, too, now are resurrected “to walk in a newness of life” [3].

It all starts at the cross–now our cross. We, like Christ, show the greatest love when we lay down our lives for another [4]. There is no greater love. He did it, and now as the “children of the Highest,” we do it. And then God’s love will flow through us. Then we will be used by our Creator to be His fountain of fearless love, His essence, agape love. For “God is love” [5].

Then we will conquer the fear of being rejected. For “perfect love casts out fear” [6]. With our old selves dead and gone, we will be able to channel Christ’s Spirit of love back to God by loving others.

And then great joy will be ours, for we will have the capacity to fulfill everyone’s desire. For everyone wants to be loved.   Kenneth Wayne Hancock