Devotionals

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There is a movie called The Lake House, which I have not yet seen. If you have, please don’t spoil it for me by revealing the ending! It is about two people who correspond and fall in love. The problem is that they are at the same place, but exactly two years apart! It is a frustrating tale of unreachable love.

Cast Away features Tom Hanks as a Fed Ex executive who is stranded on a desert island for four years. With him is a picture of the woman he loves. When he returns to civilization, he discovers that the woman whose picture helped sustain him has gotten married and borne children. When they meet, they realize that their love is still intact. They experience unreachable love.

Charles Schulz, creator of the Peanuts comic strip, was in love with a woman who turned down his proposal of marriage. She was immortalized as “The Little Red-Haired Girl,” the object of Charlie Brown’s unrequited love, unreachable love.

It is said that “love isn’t love until it’s given away.” There is truth to that. Love is active and needs an outlet. Perhaps the only thing more painful than unexpressed love is unreachable love, love that is either not returned or is unfulfilled.

Because we live in a confused, sin-cursed world, there are many reasons why love can remain unfulfilled, but most of them fall into three categories: Time, distance, and self-made barriers.

The Lake House is a good example of the barrier of time. There were two people longing to be with each other, but the timing wasn’t right. The ebb and flow of the seasons of life often keeps people apart. One matures more quickly than another; someone needs time to “find himself”; everyone says, “You’re too young.” Time factors can eat away at a relationship.

Cast Away’s couple suffered from a sea of distance. They were far apart and couldn’t connect with more than hopes and dreams. These were not strong enough to keep the cord from severing when she was faced with the probability that she would never see him again. Such can be the fate of lovers separated by war, business, school, family moves, and many other factors that put physical distance between people. Unreachable love will find its fulfillment nearby.

The Little Red-Haired Girl put up barriers that kept Schulz away from her door. Barriers to love can consist of pride, fear, ghosts from the past, anger, unforgiveness, discontent, and many other negative feelings. These can keep love from reaching out and touching someone, or being touched by someone.

Thankfully, God’s love knows few barriers—only one, really. Isaiah tells us what it is: “But your iniquities have separated you from your God” (Isaiah 59:2). It’s not so much that sin keeps us from God’s love—it just keeps Him at arm’s length. Sin keeps us from the fullness of His love.

However, God continues to manifest His love to us, despite our negative reactions toward him. “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8, NKJV). He loves us despite our sin, and He longs to be with us. However, sin makes His love unreachable.

To expand upon Isaiah’s words above: “Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God” (Isaiah 59:1, 2). It’s not that God cannot reach us; it’s that we barricade Him.

What is the solution to this unreachable love? “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). The most famous Bible verse in the world tells us that God loved us enough to send His Son to die for our sins, to remove the barriers forever and let us be friends with Him forever. All it takes is faith: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love” (Galatians 5:6). Religious ritual or heritage means nothing; the death of Christ alone atones for sin.

If you already are a believer, the news is even better. The apostle Paul, who suffered more as a Christian than most anyone, triumphantly proclaimed, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38, 39). Neither time nor space nor anything on our part or another’s can form a barrier between God and us that His arm cannot reach over. Once we accept His offer of forgiveness by faith, no matter what happens to us or why it happens or by whom it happens, there is no such thing as unreachable love with God.

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