Gorging on Chocolate Love
Have you ever gone a long time without eating and felt your stomach groan with hunger? In those situations, what was your body telling you? Obviously, it was crying out for some nutritious food. Yet, how often have you consumed chocolate candy out of desperation or convenience, just to get rid of those hunger pangs? I’ve done it several times. What happens?
Chocolate highs
Initially, feeding your empty stomach with chocolate feels great. The ache goes away, your hunger disappears, and all of the sugar and caffeine hitting your system gives you the sensation of feeling “high.” Buzzing with bliss, you wonder why you don’t eat chocolate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
About thirty minutes later, however, everything changes. A sharper pain than the one before grips your stomach, and your head becomes dizzy. All of your pleasant feelings degenerate into discomfort worse than your original hunger.
What caused this pain to result?
Was there something wrong with the chocolate? No. Chocolate candy is safe to eat, but it doesn’t contain the nutrients necessary for your body to survive. Therefore, when you are hungry, chocolate alone cannot help you. Instead, it makes you feel worse. For your body to thrive, it must receive a steady diet of nutritious food. Then you can enjoy chocolate as a fun dessert. However, you will get sick if you try to live solely on chocolate.
Unfortunately, many singles enter dating relationships by trying to “eat chocolate on an empty stomach.” They approach one another with hungry hearts, hoping that the other person will feed them. This condition can be especially acute when a man or woman feels lonely, rejected, or starved for acceptance. Without love, people become desperate for something to fill the void inside their hearts. A romance, with its potentially sweet taste and emotional highs, seems the likely solution to their hunger.
Looking for love in all the wrong places
As a single adult, I was hungry for love and searched repeatedly to find a woman to fulfill me. Every new romance that I entered felt like a chocolate sugar high, with soaring emotions, exhilarating self-esteem boosts, and a sweet sense of security. In the headiness of romantic rapture, my heart thought that a woman could fulfill me forever. Nevertheless, the euphoria inevitably collapsed. Sometimes, it took weeks. Other times, it took months. My wife’s happiness vanished after a year of dating and seven months of marriage.
Regardless of how wonderful a new dating relationship feels, the romantic bliss will eventually wear off. Human affection may taste good, but, like chocolate, it cannot give our hearts what they need for survival. The true hunger of our hearts is to be accepted unconditionally. We need more than just attention, friendship, or sex. We long for someone to love us despite our faults, mistakes, and imperfections. Our hearts remain hollow when no one completely accepts us.
Unconditional love
Humans, however, cannot give each other unconditional love. We get upset or impatient when someone fails to make us happy. Furthermore, we base our love for someone on how well they perform. The root of this problem is sin, which causes constant mistakes, conflicts, and disappointments. No one is accepting, patient, and forgiving all of the time. Therefore, human love is like chocolate because the pleasure doesn’t last. None of us have the ability to accept people unconditionally. The affection we give to each other may taste good initially, but the thrill disappears as our selfish motives demand performance. And this problem lasts from the cradle to the grave.
I don’t mean to sound fatalistic, but we must acknowledge the reality that human love is performance-based. It always has been and always will be. You can date anyone in this world, but that person cannot give your heart the unconditional acceptance that it craves.
This truth also applies in marriage. Someone once asked a pastor, “What is your wife’s opinion of you?”
He replied, “It depends on what day you ask her. Some days she loves me. Other days, I drive her crazy, and she wonders why she married me. My wife and I wish we could love each other perfectly, but it is impossible since we both sin and make choices that hurt each other. God is the only Person who loves us regardless of how we act.”
Is marriage the answer?
Consider those around you. How many of your married friends warn you that marriage is tougher than you think? Yet, how many of your single friends complain of feeling incomplete without a spouse?
All too often, we neglect what our hearts really need and attempt to satisfy ourselves with a cheap substitute called romance. In essence, we try to live on an unhealthy diet of chocolate. But our hearts cannot survive under the demands of performance-based love. We inevitably burn out, wear out, or drop out, from trying to please others.
In my case, I had to reach total exasperation before I grasped that dating and marriage would never fulfill me. I appeared successful to many people, because I’d had several girlfriends and reached my goal of marriage. Those romances, however, never fulfilled me. Either I required too much of a woman, or she expected too much of me. We were sincere in our desire for lasting love, but we couldn’t make it happen.
Real love is out there
You don’t need a new set of dating principles or techniques. A perfect love waits to delight you. This love, however, cannot soothe the ache within your heart until you stop chasing after romantic passion or passionate sex. Those shallow quests lead to emptiness. The hunger in your heart is for real passion.
Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life.
No one who comes to me will ever be hungry again.”
(John 6:35 NLT)
Passion awaits you
Stop settling for less than what your heart truly desires. A higher love waits to take you beyond the jaded, cynical disappointments that result from most dating relationships. No longer does your heart have to survive on the cheap chocolate of empty romance. You were made to experience more than just manipulation, performance, or selfish indulgence. You were created by God to share in the ecstasy of real love, not just when you get to heaven but in life on earth as well.
Before you can truly love another person, however, you must first understand how much you are already loved. So open your heart, and prepare for the passion that awaits you.
Take a look at your life. How would you describe it? Contented? Rushed? Exciting? Stressful? Moving forward? Holding back? For many of us it’s all of the above at times. There are things we dream of doing one day, there are things we wish we could forget. In the Bible, it says that Jesus came to make all things new. What would your life look like if you could start over with a clean slate?
Living with hope
If you are looking for peace, there is a way to balance your life. No one can be perfect, or have a perfect life. But every one of us has the opportunity to experience perfect grace through a personal relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ.
You can receive Christ right now by faith through prayer. Praying is simply talking to God. God knows your heart and is not so concerned with your words as He is with the attitude of your heart. Here’s a suggested prayer:
Lord Jesus, I want to know you personally. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life to you and ask you to come in as my Savior and Lord. Take control of my life. Thank you for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Make me the kind of person you want me to be.
Does this prayer express the desire of your heart? You can pray it right now, and Jesus Christ will come into your life, just as He promised.
Is this the life for you?
If you invited Christ into your life, thank God often that He is in your life, that He will never leave you and that you have eternal life. As you learn more about your relationship with God, and how much He loves you, you’ll experience life to the fullest.
Excerpted from The Power of Passion: Applying the Love of Christ to Dating Relationships by Rob Eager. Used with permission.
“Doing all the things I’m supposed to do” does not make you feel God’s presence. All of those activities are good to be involved in but can become a lifeless ritual. They are only activities that can help focus our attention on God and help train us to hear His voice.
But if you have blocked out the voice of the Holy Spirit who has asked you to do something, stop doing something or something like that, you will not be able to hear what God is saying to you in other situations. I love sleeping with fresh air blowing in from the window but at certain times of the year sea lions from a nearby beach make a horrible racket in the early hours of the morning. So I throw a pillow over my head so I can’t hear the seals anymore. But then, when my alarm goes off I can’t hear it anymore because there is a pillow over my head. Now if the Spirit of God has convicted you of a sin in your life that you do not want to deal with, you metaphorically, throw a pillow over your heart so that you can’t hear him talk to you about that area of your life. But now you can no longer hear the Holy Spirit at all. Now you have this feeling of being distant from God and wondering why He doesn’t show His love to you. What you don’t realize is that He is showing His love but the pillow over your heart doesn’t allow you to receive it.
So you need the Spirit of God’s help to get that pillow off of your heart. You need to ask Him to show you again the thing that He has asked you to deal with. Maybe it is a bitter, unforgiving attitude towards your parents. Maybe it is an unwillingness to apologize to someone that you have been hurtful towards. Maybe it is a spirit of religiosity that seeks to follow ritual rather than walk with God personally. These are only guesses because I don’t know you well enough to know for sure. But if you ask the Spirit to show you what part of your life you have ignored Him and then when He shows you what it is, repent and ask for His help to turn it over to Him, you will have taken that pillow off your heart and the words of God and His love will come flowing into your life.
This may be an exercise you could do with a godly mentor or Christian brother from your small group. Having someone to walk through this with you will give you support in discernment and in prayer.
Does this make sense?
Your probably right Jamie, It’s a catch 22. I keep trying to commit and surrender my life but I’m just going through the motions because my heart’s not really in it.
I’m trying do do all the things I’m supposed to do. I go to church every Sunday, I go to at least one small group every week, sometimes two, I’m fighting the “every man’s battle” in my life, I’m listening to broadcast teaching ministries during the day, I’m trying to pray in the morning and have devotions but it’s all just empty activity,duty, obligation.However, He doesn’t have my heart, I feel very little love or trust for God because I feel very little love from God.
How can I change my own heart? Do I have to love him first before I can experience his presence?
I’m doing OK going through the motions right now but I don’t know how long I can sustain it. I have tried many times before and eventually became discouraged and gave up.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ve committed the “unforgivable sin”, or maybe I just wasn’t chosen
I don’t think you are contentious Roy. I appreciate your willingness to put yourself out there in order to figure this all out. This weekend I went to a local swimming hole with my family. There is a pretty good sized rock to dive from that can be intimidating to jump off. I was going to show-off by diving in head first but as I stepped up to the edge my resolve slightly weakened. I finally mustered up the nerve and jumped but I was slightly hesitant and didn’t fully commit myself and ended up not quite getting vertical by the time I hit the water. My red chest and stomach were the rewards of my lack of full commitment.
That same truth is seen in relationships time and again: people’s fears of committing make their attempts at relationship half-hearted at best and they end up getting hurt which in turn becomes a reinforcement of their original fears. I know that in many cases commitment to a human is risky because people are fallible and act selfishly which is hurtful in a relationship. But a commitment to God has none of those risks. He asks for a lot from us and sometimes allows us to go through hurtful situations but He never deals with us selfishly or cruelly. He helps us through all difficult situations and never leaves us. When we fully commit ourselves to His care, authority and forgiveness there is never any regret and we experience the fullness of His love in our lives.
As you describe your disappointment with your relationship with God I can only see one answer: you have not fully committed yourself to following God and His direction for your life. I can’t say where you are holding back but I am certain that if you ask the Holy Spirit to point it out to you He will. The question is will you be open to what He has to say? I have met others who have expressed similar experience (or perhaps more accurately the lack of experience) and there have been some common components. Usually there has been a situation in the past that has been very hurtful. In response to that situation the person has developed a distrust of God saying, “How can I trust God when He allowed that to happen to me?” It sounds like that may have been your experience as well. Another common component of people’s stories is that there has been something the God has asked of that person that they have been unwilling to follow Him in obedience in that area of their lives. That has begun a pattern in their lives of hardening their heart against the Holy Spirit’s instruction. Both of these things become killers in our relationship with God because we never fully commit to relationship with God.
Asking someone to go through this process with you and the Holy Spirit can be very helpful. We are called to carry one another’s burdens and through that fulfill the law of Christ to love one another. You could talk to a trusted Christian friend, your pastor or connect with one of our online mentors (you can find the Mentor Request Form at http://powertochange.com/discover/talk-to-a-mentor).
Roy, I am not trying to be hurtful or condemning in this (believe it or not) but there is no other explanation for what you describe. God’s love is an undeniable reality because it is based on His character. He has gone to great lengths to extend His love to all of us, including you. His consistent promise is that He loves everyone He has created and offers to everyone the opportunity of experiencing that love. It is a defamation of God’s character to accuse Him of withholding His love from you. If that were true it would prove that God is a liar and therefore not at all worthy of our worship and obedience. For me that is great hope because that means you do not need to be trapped in this feeling of no connection with God. You can indeed have the passion and love that is waiting to delight you.
Lord God I ask that You would help Roy discern where in his life he has turned his back on Your instruction and built this lack of trust. I am sure it will be a painful process for him but I know that You will be with him and bring comfort through the process. As Roy repents of those things Lord I pray that You would pour out Your love into his life and fill him with the joy of knowing You in an intimate real way. And as You transform his relationship with You begin to transform his relationship with his wife and children and his family. Heal the hurts there and bring new life and vitality to their love for one another. I know this will take a miracle but I know that You are more than able to accomplish and so much more. You are the Almighty God that has proven again and again that You love to bless us Your people. Pour out that blessing into Roy’s life Lord. Amen.
Jamie,
So many times I enter a response to another response and I loose track of the words of the article that I was initially attempting to respond to. I have one too many chromosomes for multitasking I guess,(or something like that).
The words of the article that caught my attention were “Passion”, and “a perfect love waits to delight you” or “real love is out there”.
What you described in your response doesn’t fit this description does it?
Passion is believing words from a book that were written between 2 and 10 thousand years before I was born? This article seems like a dangerous misrepresentation, unless believing actually leads to some kind of encounter or experience.
Again, I certainly do not know the answer, I do not dispute what you say or what the bible says.
In my last entry I said I didn’t know what would touch my heart or what to ask for. I read this article again and was reminded. Passion is exactly what I desire.
I have read the scriptures and continue to try my best to believe and conquer doubt but that is a long way from passion or a love that awaits to delight me.
Jamie, thank you again,
it’s not my intention to be contentious, I am trying to understand.
The man who wrote the words “you reflect the glory of God Himself” met Jesus or those words would never have been written. There was an encounter that took place. Peter got out of the boat because Jesus was right there saying, “come”. If Jesus had sent someone else to tell him or if the scriptures Peter read had told him I’m not sure he would have. I think that if you look again you will notice that I said in my previous entry “I have much and I thank him for it” I know that he provided it, what I meant was I didn’t actually experience it coming directly from Him. I know that sounds crazy, but what I am trying to say, knows someone loves you and experiencing being loved are not the same. I don’t desire a burning bush to speak to me or a pillar of smoke or fire either. I don’t desire to see god either, I don’t desire anything specifically, I don’t know what would touch my heart. I have read and heard the scriptures you mentioned but the best I’ve been able to manage is intellectual acceptance.
I understand that I have to have faith and believe. I am having a tremendous struggle to do that. How can closeness and intimacy be derived from a relationship where the entire other half must be taken on faith. I don’t see how believing can be enough without some kind of personal encounter. How does it get from your head to your heart? Or is that backwards, does it have to start in your heart? He commands us to love him with all of our mind and strength how can that happen by faith. I can’t even do that for someone who is standing right in front of me. How can I change my own heart? How can I believe enough to fill this hole? In many places I have read and heard that the Holy Spirit does this in you. Is that true? I know we can’t live by our emotions but how do you live with them when they are powerful and painful?
I read this today on another Christian site. “If you have difficulty really believing and intimately experiencing this in your own life, then see the Scriptures on Knowing God Loves Me at the end of this article. Make up 3×5 cards, and keep these cards with you at all times-in your car, in your purse, on the mirror in the bathroom, etc. Then, when doubts, fears, unbelief, insecurities, etc., come over you, whip out those cards, confess and repent of the things that are not of faith and give them to God. Then choose by faith – not by feelings – to believe what God says and in His timing, He will align your feelings to match your choices.
Does this sound right to you, Jamie?
There was also another article that quoted a prayer that Paul wrote in Ephesians, and the article recommended praying this prayer.
“I pray, Father, that out of your glorious riches you may strengthen me with power through your Spirit in my inner being, so that Christ may dwell in my heart through faith. And I pray that I, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge–that I may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all I ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within me, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. [Adapted from Ephesians 3:16-21]
Keep praying this prayer until you grasp the reality and the wonder of knowing that God truly loves you!”
I respect your opinion. You seem to me to be a sincere, Godly person.
Roy, I know that in our world we have trained ourselves to categorize what we perceive as “God’s hand” to a pretty narrow band. It has to be miraculous and spectacular. God certainly is able and does work in that way but His work is not limited to that. You say you worked and made your income and God had nothing to do with that. Yet the Bible says that God has supplied all your needs. If you think about it, He is the one who made you with the skills and talents you have that qualify you to work. He has led you toward training and environments where you have been able to refine those skills. Not only that but the success or failure of the organization in which you work is dependent on the divine hand of God. The Bible claims, “The king’s heart is like a stream of water directed by the LORD; he turns it wherever he pleases.” (Proverbs 21:1) so even the political economic system in which your company exists is the result of God’s provision. Now, you either believe God’s claims and have a heart of gratitude or you consider His claims an exaggeration and take the credit yourself. You will be surprised how your world will change as your heart moves from one that establishes your own truth to one that trusts in the Word of God and expresses gratitude for all He has done. It isn’t faith to believe that you have what you need but it is faith that trusts when God said He has provided for you.
Comfort is somewhat different but in many ways is the same. God promises to care for us, to protect us, to comfort us. If we believe what He says, that will bring us comfort. If we don’t believe what He says we don’t receive any comfort. If we believe, that belief brings comfort. It is the same if a friend tries to comfort us. They say, “It will get better. I am here for you.” If we believe them we are comforted. If we don’t we feel angry that they let us down. The fact that we can see the other person may help us believe their words, but God’s promise that He is with is just as certain as if you literally saw Him next to you.
If you are looking for a supernatural encounter like a burning bush or something, you may be disappointed. God does sometimes reveal Himself like that but for most of us the encounters are just as real but with less visual evidence. You ask that God say your name; the Bible says your name is written in the palm of His hand (Isaiah 49:16). You ask that God fill you with is love; the Bible says “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us,” You ask that God tell you something that He likes about you; the Bible says that you reflect the glory of God Himself (2Corinthians 3:18). All of your life Roy, God has been showing, telling and giving His love to you. You are His adopted son, chosen from before the beginning of the world. He has given His infinite self to you. If you believe what He says, what more could you ever want?!
Jamie,
thank you for responding,
I understand that the Bible describes a love that is far greater than what we are capable of.Unfortunately that is as far as it goes.That’s as close as I can get, the Bible says it and I try my best to believe it. It’s not close enough,
I didn’t experience God’s provision, his involvement is left to be taken on faith. I worked, I got paid, and I bought what I could and did without what I couldn’t. I have much,and I thank Him for it. My point is there is no closeness in this. I didn’t experience this coming from His hand I can only try my best to believe that it did.
I haven’t experienced comfort on hard days though I begged for it. I haven’t experienced his spirit with me always. there have been a few times I experienced something similar to peace for a brief instant, maybe that was him. I can never find it or Him when I need them.I didn’t experience salvation a man behind a pulpit said some words, I became afraid of going to hell so I walked down and said a prayer.Years later another man behind another pulpit said I could experience love and joy and peace so I walked down that Isle also and said pretty much the same prayer again. The part that Jesus did is left to be taken on faith. All of these things have to be taken on faith. Faith is not experience and experience is not faith. I have read, many times, the scripture,”the just shall live by faith” and “blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe”, but we are not talking about being just or blessed we are talking about experiencing being loved.
Let’s not forget the whole point of this conversation, the article speaks of seeking the the love of people instead of the love of God. There is a logical reason why this happens.I believe that reason is what I am describing to you.This article speaks directly of the condition I find my self in. Romance and sex are the only ways I have ever experienced being loved.It’s true too, I can’t find enough of either to even scratch the surface of the need I feel.But I have come to God with such faith as I have,(not much any more), and I have tried to surrender my life and, again, I will continue to do so. I feel as rejected by God as I was by my parents and as I still am by my wife. My parents kept food in the house,Good food,and a roof over my head, a nice house, and clothes on my back, nice clothes.However they also made sure that I knew they despised me. I won’t go into any more detail about those things here. I worked through those things long ago. What was done to them in there young lives was as bad or worse. They couldn’t help it and I forgive them and sympathize with them. So, I don’t hold them accountable any longer for the bottomless hole in me, but that doesn’t mean it’s gone.That hole causes a lot of problems in my marriage as well, my wife has a phlegmatic temperament, no highs , no lows just nice, safe mediocrity.
Nothing is worth getting to awful excited about and that definitely includes me.
So, because of what I know,(believe), I come to God and I beg, as I did when my eyes opened this morning, God, please come and fill me with your love. Please help me to see that you love me, personally. Say my name, tell me something you like about me. Please let me experience being loved.I will wait and try to stay clean and try to have faith, again
Roy, God’s love for us is far greater than the love that we have from anyone else. It is something that we experience in many different ways. It is experienced in His provision for our lives “How precious is your unfailing love, O God! All humanity finds shelter in the shadow of your wings. You feed them from the abundance of your own house, letting them drink from your rivers of delight” (Psalm 36:7-8), it is experienced in the comfort that we receive from Him in difficult days “All praise to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the source of every mercy and the God who comforts us. He comforts us in all our troubles” (2Corinthians 1:3-4), it is experienced in the grace and forgiveness He gives us through Jesus “God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8), it is experienced in the presence of the Holy Spirit with us always “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit” (John 14:16-17). It is even a love that has skin on because the followers of Jesus are the physical representation of the body of Christ “Instead, we will hold to the truth in love, becoming more and more in every way like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. Under his direction, the whole body is fitted together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love” (Ephesians 4:15-16).
You say that knowing is not enough, does that mean you have never experienced the love of God in His provision, His comfort, His salvation and His people? The ‘knowing’ you are talking about is information, but ‘knowing’ it means acknowledging that it does come from God and reveling in His expressing His love to you.
The love we EXPERIENCE from people in this life we can actually EXPERIENCE. The passion the article speaks of you can’t actually experience but must take on faith.
Also, it takes more than just understanding that you are loved f to provoke a heart to love it must be experienced. Please, please, prove me wrong, where can I find more than words. Knowing isn’t enough, not even close.
i liked your analogy of chocolate versus real food in explaining “eros” love versus “agape” love.
Too bad we don’t have several words for love, like the Greeks do.
The other one i have been told about is “hessid”, which is supposed to be the equivalent of the Hawaiian “aloha”.
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funny thing is, i was actually searching for a nutrition website, to find out what happens to humans if they try to live on chocolate alone. your site is even better.
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is there a church in BC which i can visit if i ever get up there (from Houston)? i expect to be in seattle in the next 2 years, to visit family – how long would it take to drive from there to your location?
BTW, about my name, “Clear Lake” is that part of Houston where NASA sits. i work in the area.
thanks,
RJC
Congratulations, Rob, I enjoy the taste of your chocolate.
Keep knocking, and the door will be opened for you. But … Rob, to cultivate Love and to let it grow in one’s heart, seems for me sometimes to be like the myth of sysiphus.