Valentine’s Day is still a few days away, but I didn’t want to ignore it so we’re wrapping up our “honor/shame” discussion in sort of a Valentine’s Day context. It may seem like a bit of a stretch, but we can be assured that if the living God is involved, there’s a love connection of some kind to be made if we look for it. So, hopefully, there’s a worthwhile lesson or two waiting to be unveiled and applied, and it doesn’t involve flowers, cards, or candy.  

An Early Encounter ~
And speaking of Valentine’s Day, one of my early memorable encounters with the “Hallmark Holiday” involved a girl whose family moved to our small southern Virginia town from New York. In spite of her “Yankee” origin, strange accent, and the rumor that she liked eating something called bagels for breakfast instead of biscuits, she seemed nice. And for reasons I didn’t fully understand at the time, she was really appealing to look at. Whatever that strange quality she seemed to possess was, it made the terrifying risk of trying to get her to notice me worth considering. 

The approach of Valentine’s Day, coupled with the discovery that one of my buddies had a bag of those candy hearts with stuff written on them, gave birth to an idea. The ones he had weren’t those tiny, smeary ones, but the bigger, easier to read ones, which contributed to the strategy we began to devise. The plan required the services of an accomplice because at that point in my life, I was overweight, wore clunky looking glasses, had a haircut done by my grandpa (an ex-Marine Corps barber), and wore clothes Mom ordered from a Sears catalog. My first contact had to be more than just walking up to this girl and handing her a candy valentine heart. Thankfully, my friend with the bag of hearts was willing to try to make it more interesting. He would approach her with the candy heart that said “Be Mine” and tell her it was from me. 

Game On ~
It was a bold move, but he seemed confident it would work, so it was “game on.” We’d look for a time in the hallway when she wasn’t talking with someone else. I’d position myself in sight of them and be ready to smile at her and nod my head when she looked my way. Then he’d call me over and introduce me. The plot felt flawless.

The first part went just as we’d rehearsed. He walked up to her and handed her the heart and delivered his line. She took it, smiled, and said, “Thanks.” Then without reading it or looking my way, she promptly popped it in her mouth, wheeled around, and headed off down the hall. I’m not sure what I really expected, but it definitely wasn’t that. Admittedly, I knew nothing about love back then, but I figured that if it felt anything like that, I’d rather have a weirdly uncomfortable and embarrassing rash. If I had a rash, at least I could put some cream on it. 

One More Example ~
That cute little ex-New Yorker never did notice me, and, unfortunately, she wasn’t the last Valentine’s Day disappointment heading my way. Another one came years later and this time involved a girl I had known for a couple of years and had shared Valentine’s Day gifts with before. So, I didn’t feel intimidated in this case because I was faithfully following through with a guy’s universally approved Valentine’s Day procedure. I bought her one of those medium-sized heart-shaped boxes of candy with the paper lace trim around the edges. On the day of delivery, I walked up to her proudly holding her romance-inducing, love-enhancing Valentine’s Day prize behind my back. 

Before I could even bring it into view, her face descended from a smile to a flat, emotionless gaze. She sighed briefly, and said, “I know what you’re holding behind your back.” Then she followed up with, “It’s another one of those heart-shaped boxes of candy that the drug store had on that last minute sale, isn’t it?” And my heart sank.

Lessons Begin to Emerge ~
This time, the recipient of the gift I had for her at least saw a message in it, but it wasn’t the message I intended to send, and it didn’t produce the outcome I had hoped for. The mutual disappointments didn’t leave lasting scars for anyone, but they left seeds for spiritual implications that would not germinate until much, much later. The lessons God wanted me to learn from that experience involve addressing some important, but potentially uncomfortable, questions. Though the girl in the incident never actually asked them, I can look back and see the questions in her face as she appraised the gift I was about to give her. 

Obviously, Valentine’s Day wouldn’t fall under the heading of a “Christian” holiday, and we don’t approach God with our “love gifts” to Him wrapped in colorful heart-shaped boxes. But what if we adopted that perspective for a moment? Could some of those uncomfortable questions I saw in the eyes of my love object years ago be coming from God’s side of the exchange? And might some of them sound something like these from His viewpoint: 

• • What’s the gift really intended to do? Is your primary objective to bless Me, or just to make yourself look good? 
  • Are the contents of the box intended to meet a need I have, fulfill My desire for something, reinforce our relationship, or just something to fulfill a ritualistic obligation? 
  • Does the gift acknowledge your awareness and emphasize your gratitude for the sacrifices I made to have this relationship with you? 
  • What are you really trusting as your means of generating the response you want from Me? Is it the popular culture’s approval of the packaging you chose? Or is the response you hope to get from Me entirely dependent on the value I place on what’s inside the box? 
  • Finally, do the contents of this heart-shaped box reflect and validate the love that you claim it represents?  

Identifying the Primary Ingredient ~
Suppose for a minute that we want to offer God a special “love gift” that we know He would treasure. What would it look like? How would we “package” it? Would we wrap it in our uplifting worship songs? Would we demonstrate it by supporting some ministry with our labor? Would we exhibit it in our eloquent words, or talented performances? Those things are all good, but there’s something that God wants included in any gift we offer him. Jesus indicated that when He reiterated Isaiah’s declaration of God’s disappointment in what His people were offering Him:

He [Jesus] answered and said to them,
Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written:
This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ (Mark 7:6–7 NKJV)

More than anything, God wants our hearts, not just our words. He wants our love, not just our acknowledgement. He wants the honor we offer to be defined by His terms, not ours. Thankfully, it isn’t complicated. There’s one principle that brings it all together, and Jesus identified it in simple, unambiguous language when He said:

If you love Me, keep My commandments. (John 14:15 NKJV)

And John reinforced it later:

For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. (1 John 5:3 NKJV)

In a Valentine’s Day context, we might say that God wants all of the gifts we offer Him to be in a “heart-shaped” package. That is, He wants our words, our worship, and our work to reflect the contents of a willing and obedient heart. It comes down to this. We cannot honor God more than to love Him with all our heart – and we cannot love Him more than to practice the principles He taught. When we proclaim God’s honor with our love and demonstrate our love with obedience, the gift we offer and the heart that presents it become one – and the fountain of blessing flows in both directions.

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    • “The lessons God wanted me to learn from that experience involve addressing some important, but potentially uncomfortable, questions.” @GallaghersPen (Click here to Tweet)  
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    • “God wants our words, our worship, and our work to reflect the contents of a willing and obedient heart. We can’t honor God more than to love Him with all our heart – and we can’t love Him more than to practice the principles He taught.” @GallaghersPen (Click here to Tweet)

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