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There really is something about love:

On the one hand, because we are all different, we all react to things differently. Some things that really speak to us, or really hit us, or really move us might leave others cold. But on the other hand, because we are all made in the image of God, we all have universal experiences, longings, inklings and desires.

This might be a very odd article, then, in light of my first point above. But because of the second, many of you might relate. My title speaks of love: a universal human longing. We ALL want to be loved and accepted and cared for. Yet, in this fallen and broken world, most of us have known little of this.

Indeed, the place where you should find the most love and care – the family home – so often disappoints. A child might know little love, but plenty of abuse and rejection. A child might see his or her parents break up at an early age, shattering their world. Parents might walk out on a child, never to return.

Then again, friends might also leave us or betray us. Spouses might turn on us and turn away from us. Everywhere, we see love being smashed, crushed and destroyed. So many people are walking wounded, having never known what it is to really be loved and accepted and embraced.

Divine Love

Of course, it is the love of God that must be turned to when all human loves disappoint and depart. Yet so many know nothing of the love of God. Or if they do, as believers, it can be in the form of head knowledge only, with no real sense or experience of its reality.

I know many Christians who feel this way. Many say they do not know what it means that God loves them. Yes, they have all the biblical and theological knowledge, yet it seems to be something they cannot seem to grasp, to appropriate, to experience, to enjoy.

Oddly enough, I, too, have known this. One can have a head full of knowledge about the love of God, and yet daily struggle to really know it and experience it. It is a funny thing. But I know that even though we are all image-bearers of God, and because we are all alienated from Him due to sin, that even after a new birth, the sense of knowing God is not always immediately there.

Hunger

OK, so I am rambling here, but the reason for this piece being penned is this: for perhaps the second time in maybe the last 15 years or so, I have watched good hunks of a film on television which, for some reason, really spoke to me. Indeed, I found myself choking up more than I ever have before. The tears could not stop.

The film was about love. It was about looking for love. It was about desperately trying to get the love of a loved one. If you have seen the film, you know whereof I speak. If not, I will have to provide some details here. I refer to the 2001 science fiction film A.I. Artificial Intelligence (also just called A.I.) directed by Steven Spielberg.

It is based on a 1969 story that filmmaker Stanley Kubrick was first going to do. It is about a future time in which most of humanity has been wiped out, and humanoid robots with intelligence but no real feelings are created to take their place.

One human family buys David as a sort of replacement son. He is a newer model, capable of experiencing love. He greatly loves the mother, Monica, but after a series of events, the father wants him destroyed. As she is taking him back to the creator, she relents and drops him off in the middle of the woods, leaving him alone, heartbroken, and in tears.

That is the first scene that broke me up terribly. No other film scene has done that to me. When we speak of being all choked up, that really happens to me big time when I see that bit. A young (robotic) boy being abandoned by the mother he so terribly loves is just so heartbreaking.

You really should see the whole film, but here is that sad scene:

Dream Come True

Plenty happens during the next hour of the film. He goes on a quest for a Blue Fairy whom he believes can grant him his wish of being fully human so he can finally be loved by the mother. He does meet her in the end, but it seems to finish there. However, 2000 years later, advanced robots find him, and work to recreate his mother so the two can reunite. However, she will only be able to live for one day.

But he gets his wish of her loving him as much as he loves her. As a Wiki piece says:

“David spends his happiest day with Monica, and as she falls asleep in the evening, Monica tells David that she has always loved him: ‘the everlasting moment he had been waiting for’, as the narrator describes. David falls asleep as well and goes to a place ‘where dreams are born’.”

I will say no more about the film if you have not yet seen it, and are wanting to. But again, for me, the final half hour or so of the film just drove me to uncontrollable tears. It just hit me so very hard. But as I say, some of you will wonder what I am going on about here.

Some of you will say, ‘It is just a lousy movie – why are you getting so worked up about it?’ OK, so call me a sentimental old fool. But some of you will share my reactions. Something very deep down inside of me is touched when I watch a movie like this. It is tapping into some very real things in my life – even if I am not quite sure what.

Perhaps I have been looking for and craving love all my life, but never felt it had really happened. Of course, I had loving parents, a loving wife, loving children, loving friends, and so on. But perhaps the deeper love of God is something I am still trying to get a real handle on. To really fully experience and deeply know. There might be some very old wounds there that are in need of healing. I don’t know.

But I do know three things:

• We are all desperately looking for love.
• We mostly look for love in all the wrong places.
• Only the infinite and immeasurable love of God will ever finally and fully satisfy our need for love.

So, I have written my piece. It will likely get mixed reactions. But there is something about love, acceptance, and affirmation that we all need. And God has it in abundance if we are just able to receive it.

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Originally published at CultureWatch.