You know you are ancient when you squeeze around the table with single girlfriends to discuss their social life. In the digital dating scene, it is completely normal to just engage multiple guys, none of which you have met. Freaks. Me. Out!

Take a breath. I’m not knocking it. Sure, I’ve heard horror stories about online dating, but I have witnessed some really beautiful ones, too.

Speaking of love (or NOT!), my daughter is an avid viewer of “The Bachelor,” along with a boatload of other fans. I don’t get it. Droves of chicks clamor for the same irresistible guy. (You can almost hear the auctioneer in the background.) Our fascination with this drama reveals how truly desperate we are for love—

or anything resembling it.

Every heart searches for this seemingly elusive prize. It is the innate craving of our soul: to love and be loved. At our core, we desire to be known, deeply known.

Letting others see the real us . . . isn’t this the most terrifying thing in the world?

We need the one who loves us to actually know us. We want them to understand our peculiarities. But at the same time, we are completely terrified to let anyone inside our armor. We suffer this monstrous fear that if our quirkiness gets exposed, surely others will never love all the parts that makes us . . . us.

I’m not trying to psyche you or over-spiritualize things. (Don’t you hate it when people do that?) I’m just telling you some truth that your heart needs to hear (I mean, REALLY hear, in the deepest part of you).

The One who dreamed you and spoke you into existence knows you better than you know you. He understands you completely. From the very beginning, He saw the most real essence of you, with all your blunders and brokenness on full display. He is intimately acquainted with every imperfection. He has seen you at your best and at your very worst. He knows fully the darkness inside you that you hope no one ever sees. He knows all your biggest fears and your deepest doubts. He knows your larger-than-life dreams and your secret hopes. He knows the things about you that you don’t even tell yourself because you are afraid to even think them, much less speak them out loud. He knows absolutely every detail of you from the inside out.

And STILL He loves you completely.

THIS is what it means to be His son or daughter: to be so loved that you are fully known…fully accepted…fully embraced.

This love, His love, is not a fickle thing. It remains through every season of your living and your dying. “Consider the kind of extravagant love the Father has lavished on us—He calls us children of God! It’s true; we are His adored and cherished children.” (1 John 3:1)

This doting Daddy wants the world to know that you belong to Him. Did you hear me? Your Father is proud of you, enthusiastically proud of you.

Not only does God see who you are, He sees who He created you to become. Our good Father sees far more than you can see and knows far more than you can know!

Yes, indeed, our parched lives thirst for authentic love that will stick it out when the worst of us comes out of hiding. I’ve come by to remind the deep places of your panting heart today that real love awaits you, and yes, the realyou.

We never need to clamor in competition for Him, like the ladies on that TV show. If we embrace this One who awaits and pursues us, we will know ourselves and love ourselves in a whole new way. From that place of security, we can know and be known. When we know who He is, we know who we are. When we know who we are, others can know us, too. It’s time for the real you to know real love. Drink, oh thirsty soul.

For comments or prayer, contact Dr. Lanier at HopeCommunityChurch.tv.