When we think about Valentine’s day most of us associate it with the romantic love of husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends and crushes both secret and no so secret. Our society reinforces this and our retail establishments cater to it strongly with cards, flowers, candy, chocolates, balloons and the color red absolutely everywhere.
And while I admit to enjoying Valentine’s day because of the opportunity it gives me to do nice things for my wonderful wife I also wonder how God feels about all of it. After all, God is love and without God we would not know what love is. God gave us the institution of marriage, he created the family unit and he modeled perfect love for us in the person of Jesus Christ.
For those of us who really get into it, there is the tendency to spend a lot of time, effort and money on Valentine’s day for that special person. But if we really stop and think about it no one is more deserving of our love and our adoration than Jesus Christ. He is our savior, he is our deliverer and he is our best friend. He has promised to never leave or forsake us and he never withholds his steadfast love from us.
So while I think God is pleased when we show genuine love and affection to one another I think we need to be very careful that we don’t leave God out of any celebration that we have of love and of the good things of life. God is the author and creator of all good things and he deserves all of our praise and should be the center of our lives.
We do well when we tell God that we love him and show it by the way that we live. God is pleased when selfless, agape love is practiced and that type of love and that type of living deserves to be celebrated. Valentine’s day may be a holiday that is catered towards romantic human relationships but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t remember to give love, praise and adoration to the one who is the author of love and life itself.