May your unfailing love come to me, Lord, your salvation, according to your promise.
—Psalm 119:41
Scientists finally have hard data
to back up what most of us have known for years: it really hurts to have your
heart broken. According to a 2011 study published by the National Academy of
Sciences, the part of the brain that registers physical pain is the same part
that senses intense emotional pain. Using MRIs, researchers found that the same
areas of the brain are activated when a person is burned by hot coffee as when
they experience a breakup.
If you haven’t been burned by
love yet, chances are you haven’t been around very long. Stick it out for a few
weeks or months or years, and you’re bound to get hurt at some point. The
specifics of the heartbreak may vary, but the feeling is universal: you feel
like the most vulnerable part of you of being seared right through.
Maybe when you were a child,
your parent abandoned you, whether physically or emotionally.
Maybe a spouse who committed to
love you until death do you part reneged on those vows.
Maybe a friend who promised to
stick by you let you down when you most needed a friend.
Maybe the son or daughter you
poured so much of your life and love into has severed that relationship.
Maybe you know what it’s like to
be betrayed, unloved, wounded, overlooked. Maybe you know all too well what
human love looks like—that it can be conditional, fickle, changeable.
If so, you know
the heartbeat of the psalmist. We don’t know what life experience caused his
heart to break, but we do know he had a deep longing for love that would never
fail. But he also knew this truth: while humans let us down, there is someone
whose love is unconditional. Psalm 119:41 says, “May your unfailing love come
to me, Lord, your salvation, according to your promise.”
It’s intriguing
to note here that the psalmist seems to equate salvation and unfailing love. It’s
almost like he sees the two concepts as synonymous. And as we explore the rest
of Scripture we see that this pairing of love and salvation is a common one.
Three times throughout the Psalms
we see almost identical versions of this prayer: “Save me because of your unfailing love” (Psalm 6:4); “Save
me in your unfailing love” (Psalm
31:16); “Save me
according to your unfailing love”
(Psalm 109:26).
John 3:16, that
verse we know so well that we almost miss the love story in it, paints a
picture of salvation that is motivated by unparalleled love: “God so loved the
world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not
perish but have eternal life.”
God’s motivation
for extending salvation is love. It always was, and it always will be. He doesn’t
save us out of a sense of obligation or because he’s backed into a corner or
because it was his job or because someone made him do it. He does it all for
love.
When have you been let down by someone or
had your heart broken? What does it mean to you that God loves you so much he
would do anything to save you?
—Stephanie Rische
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