“for your love is more delightful than wine.”

A person who drinks does so because of the way it makes them feel.  We love to feel good and a glass of wine can help someone do that.  Although the feeling fades when the wine does.  Love can also make someone feel really good.   A sour, unkind person can turn into a sweet, happy individual when they fall in love.   It’s a sight to behold.  But who wouldn’t?

What is more encouraging than to look into someone’s eyes and see them looking at you with tenderness, admiration and respect?  What is more restorative than to see in someone else’s eyes their tremendous value and appreciation for who you are?

We often value ourselves based on what we see in the eyes of others.  If we see disappointment, kindness, rejection, acceptance dislike, etc… it dictates how we feel about ourselves.  This is shaky ground because the Lord has made us unique and it changes based on the people we’re around.  Culture’s solution is to tell us to look within ourselves to find our value and worth.  The only problem is that when we fail to do something we know is right or we stumble in a big way, we know who we are and again our self-respect crumbles.  Still others will try to find this love in a spouse.  But when familiarity and problems dull that look of love, disappointment and frustration can set in.  Our only hope is a consistent looking into the eyes of another who look back at us with respect, love and dignity.  But who?

It is HIS eyes.  This is the look of a perfect Father who while we were still enemies, smiled on us with fierce love.  This is the look of a perfect Savior whose eyes on the cross see us with joy because we’re worth His extraordinary suffering.  This is the work of the Holy Spirit whose grace and patience never ends as He makes us into who we are.

“Those who look to him are radiant” (Ps 34:5). Those who look to him are radiant.

It matters immensely how we see the Lord seeing us.  If we look and see tenderness, dignity, respect,appreciation, kindness, gracious, jealousy, fierceness, loyalty, mercy then we see the love that secures us.  Anything less is a projection of a human authority onto Him.   His love continually lifts us if we only look at him looking at us.  It’s way better than wine because it never fades, even into eternity.