1 John 4:16b
God is love.

Let's get right to the point, shall we? If you're like most men, you saw that beautiful basket of chocolate and thought, "Oh, crud! It's Valentine's Day!" And if you're like most women, you saw that same picture and thought, "Oh, crud! That would have been so much better than the card he bought me at Food Lion." Now, this evotion is not about how bad most of us are at gift buying, but rather about how our country has successfully turned the three words in our verse around. In the good ol' US of A, love is God. Here are some stats to back that up...

The forecast for Valentine's Day spending in 2005 is $13 billion. On average, we'll all spend $97.27 each on this day with 2/3 of us buying at least one card. Just under half of us will purchase candy and 57.8% of men will buy flowers and one in five of those men will also buy jewelry. And, if you're in a munchie kind of mood, you'll be happy to know that there will be 8 billion little candy hearts made with sweet sayings on them. Believe it or not, there are more cards exchanged on Valentine's Day than on Mother's Day (but not as many as Father's Day and Christmas). And what has all this spending gotten us? A divorce rate of over 50%. Tons of consumer debt. Lots of guilt. A ridiculous amount of time wasted wondering how we can make sure that we can pick out the one gift that will make up for all the stupid things we've done since last year when we tried to find that same gift.

But what could happen in our country if we kept this sentance in the right order? What would our lives look like if we allowed ourselves to be loved by God first and then we let Him love others through us? Perhaps we would find a new level of patience with those we love the most. Maybe we would have a greater capacity for giving gifts that really matter, like trust, kindness and joy. After all, those are the gifts that will last and they can only be given when we realize that love is not God...

... but it is God's idea.