{"id":2602,"date":"2023-05-10T08:04:09","date_gmt":"2023-05-10T12:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=2602"},"modified":"2023-05-10T08:04:09","modified_gmt":"2023-05-10T12:04:09","slug":"forever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/10\/forever\/","title":{"rendered":"Forever"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>.
\u00a0
\u201cLove\u201d and \u201cforever\u201d go together like macaroni and cheese.\u00a0
\u00a0
Do a quick inventory of your favorite pop and rock songs, and you\u2019ll discover that lovers routinely make eternal promises to each other.
\u00a0
Jackie Wilson tells the world, \u201c(Your love keeps lifting me) Higher and Higher.\u201d\u00a0 Natalie Cole declares, \u201cThis Will Be an Everlasting Love.\u201d\u00a0 The husband and wife team of Daryl Dragon and Toni Tennille, better known as The Captain and Tennille, proclaim, \u201cLove Will Keep Us Together.\u201d\u00a0 The Beatles cut right to the chase: \u201cAll You Need is Love.\u201d\u00a0
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Roberta Flack sings, \u201cI knew our joy would fill the earth and last \u2018til the end of time, my love, the first time, ever I saw your face.\u201d\u00a0 In his song If<\/em>, crooner David Gates describes a love that will outlast even the demise of our planet: \u201cIf the world should stop revolvin\u2019, spinnin\u2019 slowly down to die, I\u2019d spend the end with you, and when the world was through, then one by one, the stars would all go out.\u00a0 Then you and I would simply fly away.\u201d\u00a0
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We\u2019re so used to hearing songs that include something on the order of, \u201cBaby, I\u2019m gonna love ya forever\u201d that we hardly notice the words any more.\u00a0
\u00a0
Maybe we should.
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After all, it\u2019s no secret that artists and musicians have a very hard time living out their own poetic promises.\u00a0 The Captain and Tennille\u2019s biggest hit may have gone to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1975 and won the Grammy for Record of the Year, but love did not keep them together. They divorced after what she, at least, described as a loveless marriage.
\u00a0
The rest of us aren\u2019t doing much better.\u00a0 Even though most couples on their wedding day promise to stay together \u201c\u2019til death do us part,\u201d about half of all American marriages will falter.
\u00a0
Songwriter Michael Martin Murphey laments this relational track record with the lyrics, \u201cSo what\u2019s the glory in living, doesn\u2019t anybody ever stay together anymore?\u00a0 And if love never lasts forever, tell me what\u2019s forever for?\u201d\u00a0
\u00a0
Can you imagine wedding partners making conditional<\/em> promises to each other?\u00a0 They look into each other\u2019s eyes and say, \u201cI\u2019ll stick it out with you, as long as you don\u2019t get cancer.\u00a0 Or as long as your parents don\u2019t drive me crazy.\u00a0 Or as long as you don\u2019t develop annoying habits or do something awful with your hair.\u201d People who are getting married have no more insight into their future health, finances, and emotional stability than anyone else.\u00a0 Yet with their eyes wide open they promise a love that will last forever.\u00a0
\u00a0
Why do we do that?\u00a0 And why do we keep writing songs about love that is supposed to go beyond the boundaries of space and time?
\u00a0
In his book Signals of Transcendence<\/em>, Os Guinness suggests that people make promises of eternal love because this is how God made us.\u00a0
\u00a0
We are crafted in God\u2019s image.\u00a0 Since God is love (I John 4:16), we can\u2019t help yearning for experiences of lasting security and significance \u2013 gifts that God alone is able to give.\u00a0
\u00a0
All of us are acquainted with the fact that a secular culture can come up with a million ways to mock love.\u00a0 It can be reduced to hormones.\u00a0 Or schmaltz.\u00a0 Or Hallmark cards.\u00a0 Or a cheap series of hookups.\u00a0 Or Miracle Max in The Princess Bride<\/em> affirming that there\u2019s nothing greater than true love \u2013 except perhaps for an MLT, a mutton-lettuce-and-tomato sandwich.
\u00a0
But something happens when humans fall in love.\u00a0 Even skeptics who assert that this world is all there is soon begin to chafe that this world is not enough.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\u00a0
Love, says Guinness, \u201cstakes everything on eternity actually existing.\u201d\u00a0 If we have tasted something of true love \u2013 whether for a marriage partner, children, grandchildren, or our dearest friends \u2013 Death now seems a hundred times worse.\u00a0 Now we know it will separate us from the ones we love.
\u00a0
Unless there\u2019s a God of love who actually raises the dead.\u00a0
\u00a0
If you\u2019ve attended more than few weddings, you\u2019ve probably heard the elegant expression of love embedded in I Corinthians 13.\u00a0 This text has become so familiar, unfortunately, that many of us begin to tune out as soon as we hear the words, \u201cIf I speak in the tongues of men and of angels\u2026\u201d\u00a0 We need fresh ears and fresh hearts.\u00a0 Sometimes it helps to hear a fresh translation.\u00a0 Here\u2019s how the British scholar J.B. Phillips rendered verse seven and the beginning of verse eight of the apostle Paul\u2019s most famous chapter:
\u00a0
\u201cLove knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything.\u00a0 It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen\u201d<\/em> (I Corinthians 13:7).\u00a0
\u00a0
Or as traditional translations put it, \u201cLove bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.\u00a0 Love never fails.\u201d\u00a0 In other words, it\u2019s forever.\u00a0 \u00a0
\u00a0
The songwriter asks us, \u201cIf love doesn\u2019t last forever, then what\u2019s forever for?\u201d
\u00a0
That is definitely the right question.
\u00a0
And the answer comes from the One who assures us that his love isn\u2019t just the greatest thing in this world.
\u00a0
We will enjoy it forever<\/em> in the next world, too.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here.\u00a0\u201cLove\u201d and \u201cforever\u201d go together like macaroni and cheese.\u00a0\u00a0Do a quick inventory of your favorite pop and rock songs, and you\u2019ll discover that lovers routinely make eternal promises to each other.\u00a0Jackie Wilson tells the world, \u201c(Your love keeps lifting me) Higher and Higher.\u201d\u00a0 Natalie Cole declares, \u201cThis Will Be an Everlasting Love.\u201d\u00a0… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2603,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[104,224],"class_list":["post-2602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-love","tag-promises"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2602"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2604,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602\/revisions\/2604"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}