Last time we looked at two stories, the song Pretty Fair Maid in the Garden, and the movie Cast Away. In both stories, a woman is in love with a man who has gone away and not returned — one to war and one on a plane that went down in the middle of the ocean. But both women are completely committed to their pledges of love, willing to wait, no matter how long, for the slightest possibility he may return.

In Pretty Fair Maid in the Garden, the “stranger” who comes up to the woman and asks her to be his bride, is her lost love, who the war has changed so much in seven years, she doesn’t recognize. There may be a part of him that is testing her, to see if she will stay true; but I believe he knows better. For what stranger would ask a woman to marry him, and what woman would even consider it? I believe he’s just being playful, even though it is the most serious of subjects. I believe he wants to make their moment of reunion even more special. And he does.

For after the maid tells the “stranger” she will always wait for her lost love, he pulls his hand out of his pocket. She immediately recognizes his gold ring and the most glorious of reunions begins.

Sadly, in Cast Away, the woman is convinced by friends after several years to go on with her life, and she does. When her lover is finally found after five years, it is her greatest regret, and his.

Last time I said we are moved by stories like this, not only because love and relationships are so important to us, probably the most important thing in this life — but because undying, committed, romantic love is the “single, strongest, most powerful thing in all of existence.”

I believe God not only created because of love, that nothing would exist without it, but that His unconditional, perfect love is the most fundamental aspect of His very nature. Some people say about we made of “star stuff.” I would say we are made of God’s perfect, undying, always and forever love.

And so, our application?

Do stories like this move us because deep down we know we should take our relationships with others more seriously?

For example, we should be more devoted to our friends and especially to the commitments we make, our word being our bond? I think so.

And we should especially be committed to our earthly lovers, our spouses; for this is the pledge we made when we married – for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness or health? I believe this even more.

But I don’t believe (and if you’ve even read a few of these newsletters, I don’t think you’ll be surprised) that either of these reasons is why these stories move us like they do.

We owe everything to God. Our very lives. Our very breath. What has He ever asked in return? To expand our minds and hearts and be concerned with just more than ourselves.

We may never understand completely in this life why we all tend to be so narcissistic, but we are. Many of us have begun to realize that all of our desperate efforts to fill ourselves with the things of this world will never satisfy us, in fact, we have just become more miserable. But it is all still very hard to resist.

I believe these two stories are examples of God calling out to us, trying to woo us back. It is as if He is the pretty fair maid in the garden, who has been waiting for us while we have been off at war. Some of our battles might be honorable, or more so; but many of them are not. Regardless, God will always be waiting for us at home, like the father of the prodigal son, waiting for us to come to our senses and return to Him, return home, the only place we can truly be happy and content.

And so, a better application? What would our lives look like if we looked at our relationship with God in this way? How much better would our lives be if we saw this type of devotion and fidelity as the one true charge of our lives? To Him?

To help us, next time we will look at the Hebrew word checed, pronounced “kheh’-sed.”

Sam