What is Love? by Kenn Kington

I love strawberry banana smoothies.

I love ground beef pepperoni and mushroom thin crust pizza.

I love my wife.

I love our pug dog Skittles.

I love hitting a green in two on a par five.

It doesn't happen often, but I love it when it happens.

I love my three kids.

I love Reese's peanut butter cups.

I love Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

I love the smell of a lawn and the look of a lawn freshly cut.

I love it.

I love, I love, I love.

We use this word love so much in our society, I believe it's completely lost its meaning, its feeling, its sense, its reality, its foundation.

We've lost what it means in this concept of love.

And if we look at relational love and we look at our society's definition, how do you think our society would define it?

It's got something to do with romance, something to do with sex, but a whole lot to do with feelings.

I feel like I'm in love.

I feel we've fallen out of love.

I feel, I feel, I feel.

And here's the point to that.

If we don't know what we're looking for in love, and I dare say every person in this room at some point in life has had that rush and that emotion of love and feeling of, I just love, this must be love, this is it, and then bang, you kiss the reality wall.

And it hurts.

And there's regrets.

And we think, I don't ever want to do that again.

But then our hearts crave it still.

And then we we we maybe hold a little bit of a guard, but we run into that same wall again.

And we thought, oh, I thought I could trust her, but oh.

And then we just feel even worse.

There's got to be something more.

And where I want us to start tonight is asking a simple question.

What is love?

Because here's my premise.

How can we find something if we don't know what we're looking for?

And in our society, if we're looking for our society's definition, we're in big trouble because it's based on the wrong foundation.

Tonight I'm going to share with you six words.

Six words that I've discovered and were my definition of love.

You do not have to have this definition.

But my challenge tonight is that you would take what I share and you would put it through your filter and you would decide, one, what you're going to base your love definition on, but two, what is it?

Because until we define it, we can't find it.

So my encouragement to you is what God hit me with, and that is define love.

What is the love you're looking for?

And then we can begin to prepare to find that love.

But we have to define it first.

What is your definition?

I'm going to give you my definition and what I've discovered and what it's based on.

But even if you don't agree with all of it, that's fine.

You come up with your definition, but I'm going to give you that to begin with.

And we're going to start out very simply.

Love is a, and here's the first two words: complete commitment.

Love is a complete commitment.

That's the foundation.

Parentheses, not a feeling.

Not a feeling.

Are feelings a part of love?

Absolutely.

Are they a great part of love?

Absolutely.

Are they the foundation of love?

No.

Because feelings will fade and they will come and go.

And it's actually the opposite of the way the society has.

Society's foundation, everything is feeling.

What do I feel?

Do I feel this, feel that?

Do I not feel it?

Then it must not be love.

It can't be love.

And that's a horrible foundation for love.

But see, here's the problem.

Our society is an instant gratification society.

We're going to the grocery store.

I'm with my wife when we're first married, no kids, and we're going to the grocery store, and I started dying laughing.

She's looking for something.

She goes, What are you laughing at?

And I said, Look at that.

And I'm looking at the top shelf on one of the produce aisles.

And she goes, What?

I said, Look at that.

It's Minute Rice.

And she goes, Minute rice is funny to you.

And I said, Yes.

I said, look at it.

And she goes, What?

And I said, microwaveable minute rice.

I guess a minute was just too darn long to wait anymore.

We need microwaveable minute rice.

We live in an instant gratification center.

I want what I want, what I want, how I want it, want it right now.

Problem is, love doesn't work that way.

That's not the way love works.

Lasting, meaningful, fulfilling love.

That's not the way it works.

True love, if you were to ask me, Ken, what is your most loving memory of your son?

My son Graham is now 12, about to be 13.

If you were to say, What is your most loving memory of your son Graham?

I would not recount the story of him when he was about 14 months old.

It was the middle of the night, and I heard him screaming upstairs.

I ran upstairs to his room, and as I ran, as I ran into the room, a smell hit me.

It was a smell I had not smelled before from that room.

I had smelled poop, all forms of poop, but I had not heard smell this one.

I turned on the light, and there he was standing, having puked all over himself.

And it was not a good smell.

Sour milk puke.

Not a good smell.

And I'm sitting there going, oh, and I'm in a perplexed.

I'm just thinking, oh, it's okay, it's okay, oh, oh, oh man, it's okay, it's okay.

And I got close enough to where he could grab me, and oh he was scared to death.

He had never thrown up before.

And he was scared to death, and all that scared babies want to do is be held.

And I got too close, and he was like, ah, oh, oh, oh man.

And it was, it was disgusting.

And I'm thinking, I got a I got a cowboy up here, I got a man through this, and so I got him kind of cleaned up, and I'd kind of just wrapped the sheets up and got those out, and I'm like, oh, and I've got him laying down, and I change him, and I get a new onesie on, and I get some new sheets on, and I went and I threw my t-shirt off.

I got another t-shirt on.

I'm like, oh my goodness, I'm like, okay, buddy, okay, buddy.

And I go to put him back down, and he would have nothing to do with that.

He was like, no, he was scared.

So I'm holding him.

I'm like, okay, this is the exception.

Okay, so I go to the guest bedroom and I lay him on my chest.

I'm rubbing his back, going, oh man, I'm so glad that's over.

And I no more had that thought that he went from being asleep on my chest to pushing himself up and he looked at me, I'm like, what's wrong, buddy?

Oh, and I'm like, what?

He just wanted to be held again.

Oh, oh.

And I go through the whole process again, and I just I'm just, this is the single most disgusting night of my life.

And I go through the whole process again, and now I'm learning as I'm going.

So this time I change my shirt, I change him, I change everything.

And this time I lay some uh towels on the bed, and then I have the little bucket next to the bed.

So if he pushes up again, just hey, park the Buick over there, you know, and just so sure enough, we got sick two or three more times, and I'm just holding him on, oh, it's okay, you know, and oh, it's okay.

And finally, about six in the morning, six something in the morning, I could tell it was done.

And he's laying on my chest, falling asleep.

And we cleaned it up and we'd taken the bucket out, and I'm just laying there as the sun's coming up, and he is resting for the first time in the arms of his father, his head under my chin, and I literally thought, I don't want to be anywhere else.

I would not be anywhere else on this planet because when the one who needed me most, I got to be there, and I got to meet that need.

When he when he he just he was at his wit's end, and I got to be there.

If you were to ask me what's your most loving memory, I would not recount that night.

But isn't what that isn't that what love is?

When it doesn't feel good and it doesn't sound good and it doesn't smell good, and yet everything in our body wants to give ourselves and be with that other person and do for them.

Isn't that really what love is?

I love the way that Scott Peck put it in his book called The Roadless Travel.

He said the end of romantic love is not the end of love at all.

The end of romantic love is actually the beginning of genuine love because where feelings stop, real love begins.

Let that sink in.

Where feelings stop, real love begins.

Are feelings apart?

Absolutely, and they will ebb and flow.

And in a great relationship, they will be more ebb than flow, and it is a great experience.

But that is not the foundation.

It can't be.

I love the way that the greatest definition of love in history, from a Christian perspective, was the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

The greatest act of love was that he took the punishment for all the sins of the world and he paid the price for it on the cross.

And yet listen to his feelings in the Garden of Gethsemane before he's about to go, make the greatest act of love.

In Luke chapter 22, verse 42, it says, Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me, yet not my will, but yours be done.

Luke 22:42

In Laman's terms, Lord, Father, I don't want to do this.

I don't feel like being separated.

I don't feel like this punishment.

But not my will, but yours be done.

In John chapter 15, verse 13, he puts it in a more simple, clear way about what love is.

John 15:13

There is no greater love than a friend lay down one's life for his friend.

No greater love is this than one lay down his life for his friend.

It's that complete commitment.

And I got to take a quick aside and share with you as the series goes on, we're gonna see that it's a commitment to what before it's a commitment to whom.

And what I mean by that is simply we're gonna take a look at the fact that it's a commitment to the qualities of love.

And we'll look in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, 4 through 7.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

We're gonna look in 2 Peter chapter 1 through 5, I'm sorry, chapter 1, verses 5 through 7, and see it's a process.

2 Peter 1 · chapter mention

And it's a commitment to that process.

We're gonna see in Philippians chapter 4, verses 8 through 9, that it is a commitment to the character of love.

Philippians 4:8–9

Before it, it's a commitment to a person.

It's a commitment to what?

Before whom?

And I validated this.

I had a lady come up one of the times I did this series, and she came up afterwards, she goes, you know what?

Um, I just appreciate what you said tonight.

Um, I just realized I need to be more committed.

And I said, Well, okay.

I said, You seem perplexed.

Why is that?

She goes, Well, I just, our relationship's falling apart, and I need to be more committed.

And I said, Well, tell me about your relationship.

In the next two minutes, she told me about this gentleman she was living with.

He was three times divorced.

He was a drug addict and hadn't had a job in two years.

And he abused her emotionally and physically on a regular basis.

I said, You need to be committed to a hospital, not to this guy.

Okay?

You're missing the point.

I said, it's not a commitment to whom until it's a commitment to what.

And when he embodies these characteristics and you embody these, then you will find what love really is.

It's a what before it's a who.

But it is a commitment to, a complete commitment to these qualities.

I had a gentleman who mentored me for years.

I'll call him Al, because that's his name.

And Al, Al gave me two great pieces of advice.

The first one is simply this: he says, Ken, when you meet that special someone and you think this is the one, you need to date them through the seasons.

Be committed to dating them through the seasons at least 12 months, so that you can see that person in a variety of seasons and know at a level of commitment over time to be completely committed.

He says, but if you're committed to the process, then you'll know if you're ready to be committed completely.

And I thought, what a great piece of advice.

The question is this do you and I want a relationship?

And the answer is not a word, it is an action.

And those actions are, am I committed to the truth about relationships?

Because if I am, then that is the answer to yes, I do.

Yes, I do want to find love in its purest and greatest source.

Secondly, the next two words, not only is love a complete commitment, it's a complete commitment to what?

A complete commitment to getting real.

To getting real.

What does that mean?

Jesus was asked one time, what is the greatest commandment?

And he answered it simply this way, and I want you to notice one word in this particular verse in Matthew 22, verses 37 and 39.

Matthew 22:37

It says, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.

And then he goes down to verse 39, and love your neighbor as yourself.

Look at that word all.

That word all is a genuineness, a completeness.

Love the Lord your God with all.

So first we have to get real with God.

We have to get real with God.

And real means sharing our frustrations and our hurts and our pains and our reality of saying, God, this is not what I signed up for, and God, here's where I'm disappointed, and here's where I've failed, and here's where I've messed up.

And being completely real with all we are to Him.

Not religious.

Not religious.

I think churches can get so religious sometimes they don't even realize what they're talking about.

I was in Palatka, Florida with a friend.

Driving, the radio's on.

Very well-meaning church came on the radio.

Come to our church.

We're ratified, we're sanctified, we're justified.

And I'm just like, what?

I don't even know what those words mean.

And then they said this, and I don't think they realized it.

They said, Come to our church where we believe in sharing tongues.

No, I don't know what church you go to, or if you go to church.

When I go to church, I don't want to share my tongue with anybody, okay?

That's just me.

I got this bizarre mental picture of ushers handing out bulletins going, Welcome to our service.

That just creeped me out, okay?

I did want to call that church though and go, hey, I got a great idea for your marquee out front.

Please brush and floss before all services.

If you're gonna sit.

But see, that is not.

That's religious rhetoric and words.

What God is calling us to is to being all, being completely transparent and real before Him.

I want all your heart.

I want your pains, your failures, your frustrations.

I want the beauty that I made you to be, and I want that to be manifest in you.

God wants us to experience who He created us to be.

I want to tell you my favorite prayer of all time.

Of all time.

It happened on a retreat with a bunch of college students.

We'd been in vans for eight hours.

Have you ever been on one of those trips?

Eight hours in vans, and we had not stopped to eat.

We had some snacks, but that was it.

We finally get into this town.

Now here's where you've got to use your imaginations.

The only place left open in this ski retreat town was a pizza place.

My favorite food on the planet is pizza.

And I want you to imagine being eight hours hungry.

We're around tables of about 22 college kids, and they bring out these pizzas.

And I'm sitting here smelling my favorite food, and I'm deliriously hungry, and I'm sitting there, and somebody goes, Hey, is somebody gonna bless it?

And nobody said anything.

We took off our hats, we grabbed hands, but nobody was saying anything.

Finally, Paul.

Paul was a brand new Christian.

He wasn't raised in the church.

He didn't know the religiosity, but nobody was praying, and so somebody's gonna pray.

And he'd been a Christian maybe a month or two, and Paul said, I'll pray.

And we said, Great.

I'd never heard Paul pray before.

And he uttered my favorite prayer of all time.

We bowed heads and grabbed hands.

He said, God, we love pizza.

Thanks.

And that was it.

I believe God was right there going, cool, I know you do.

Eat it.

Because it was him.

It was real.

God is not interested in our flowery religiosity.

He is interested in us being completely real with him.

And when we realize how much he wants to be real with us, one of my favorite verses in all of Scripture is Psalm 139.

And before I share this precious verse with you, I want you to imagine for a second.

I want everybody to take their hand.

Everybody take one hand, flat, palm up.

Close your eyes if you have to, but I want you to imagine yourself at the beach.

And I want you to imagine scooping up a handful of sand.

And it falls between your fingers.

But then I want you to imagine looking in the palm of your hand, and there's still just a stack of sand there.

How many grains of sand can you hold in the palm of your hand?

Thousands?

Now, with your imaginations, I want you to imagine putting that sand down, and as it falls to the beach, I want you to imagine looking as far as you can in both directions on the beach.

How many grains of sand are there on the beach?

Yet.

In Psalm 139.

He says, How precious are your thoughts to me, O God?

How vast is the sum of them?

Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.

Do you realize how much God thinks about us individually?

I shared that at a college conference one time.

These two guys from Georgia Tech came up to me at breakfast and they sat down.

So can we sit here?

I said, Yeah.

They said, um, okay, um, can we tell you something?

And I'm like, sure.

They said, last night you did it, you talked about that sand thing, and I'm like, yeah.

They said, we we figured that out.

I said, do I?

He said, we figured it out.

We went to the beach and we got one square inch of sand and we counted the grains of sand and then we we calculated that um how that was the average beach in the United States, and a man six foot tall looking in direction in both directions, and we multiplied that out.

I said, I bet you guys don't date a lot.

And uh they said, uh no, but do you know do you know how many that is?

And I said, sure.

And I don't remember the exact number, but I do remember the calculations out.

They said it's like 168 quadrillion grains of sand, and I'm like, wow.

I didn't have the heart to tell him he's writing metaphorically here, but they just went on.

And they said, Do you know how many that is?

And I'm like, no.

And he says, if you were a man and you were born completely mature and you had the ability to stay awake 24 hours a day and you had the capacity to think seven thoughts per second, every second of every minute, of every hour, of every day, you would have to live to be 78 years old to have that many thoughts.

I was like, wow.

And I said, that is really cool.

And they just kind of laughed and they went their way.

And as I sat there, I thought, you know what?

Do we realize that God has the capacity even greater than that?

Do you realize that God has seven thoughts about you every second?

And every one of those thoughts is good.

Every one of them.

And it's for our good.

That's how amazing God is.

And he says, I want you to come to me with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul.

I want you to get real with me because I do have a plan.

And I want you to experience this relationship the way I have it, where you are today for the best moving forward.

I want you to experience forgiveness and healing and hope and future, and I want you to have all of that.

Because once we get that, then we will have the freedom to be real with one another.

We lose the pressure, we lose the facade, and we're just real with one another.

When my wife and I began to date, I will never forget the time we'd been dating about three months.

We were going to breakfast.

We'd we'd picked her up and we're headed to IHOP or somewhere, and she said, How's it going?

I said, Good.

She goes, but can I ask you how we're doing?

I said, I I love where we are.

I've never had this before.

And she said, Neither have I.

And I said, What's different?

I mean, I feel so eager to be with you, but I feel no anxiety about trying to figure out where it is.

I just love being with you and I love you.

And she goes, Well, I don't know about you, but I know what I made a decision.

She goes, I got so tired of going through the routine.

She goes, I got sick and I prayed, God, I'm sick and tired of trying to be what I think that He thought I think that He thinks that I should be.

And I she said, I made myself exhausted and crazy trying to be something.

And she said, You know what?

I'm gonna be me.

This is who I am.

This is who God made me to be.

I'm me.

And I'm going to quit playing the game and I'm going to quit putting up the facade.

And I said, That's it.

That's it.

This is who I am.

And I and I'm just going to be real.

That is what it's about.

My friend Al, my mentor, he gave me a second piece of advice.

He said, Ken, when you date a girl through the seasons, and at the end of that 12 months, you think this is the one.

It's definitely the one.

He says, wait.

I said, what do you mean?

He says, wait.

I said, wait for what?

He said, wait.

Okay?

What am I waiting for?

He says, wait until she burps in front of you.

What?

I told him, I said, Al, I've read this book cover to cover twice.

I missed that verse.

Can you show that one to me?

And he goes, No.

He says, but until she burps in front of you, you haven't seen all of her.

And I was like, wow.

I got this mental picture of falling in love, buying a ring, and taking her out for Mexican food every night.

Finally, she would just go, excuse me.

No, will you marry me now?

And you know, it's true, it's true.

Now, I don't recommend that on the first few dates, okay, ladies?

I I don't I don't think it's good to go, hi, I'm Barbara.

You know, that's because there are some men that are attracted to that.

And you do not want to end up with those men, okay?

I'm just saying.

I'm just saying.

But I will say this there is great merit.

There is great merit to this concept of when I get completely real with God, then I'm ready to be completely real with one another.

I mean, completely real and just genuine.

This is who I am.

And I believe this because I saw it firsthand.

My college days, I was an underclassman, but my best friend's roommate was named Clint.

And Clint was a man's man.

And he was from the country.

And he had the red hair with a flat top haircut.

And if you were to ask him, Clint, what are you gonna do when you get out of college?

Oh, I'm gonna move out to the country and I'm gonna be a football coach, I'm gonna teach me coach football and teach.

That's great.

Clint was a man's man.

He dated Diane, one of the most refined, beautiful, soft-spoken women I've ever met.

And then we knew that Clint was in love with Diane because we saw Clint in ways with her that we didn't see him around.

I mean, completely open in ways we'd never seen.

One night in particular, I will never forget this.

We lived in this little apartment.

My friend Craig and I, we came in.

We opened the door.

Somehow they did not hear us walk in.

And as we walked in, we froze at the door.

And there's the couch about 10 feet away.

And there on the back of the couch is Clint sprawled out like a cat on the back of the couch.

We couldn't see Diane.

She's either laying down or sitting on the floor.

We didn't know.

But there's Clint on the couch, and as we froze, we looked in, and all we heard was this tough, comfortable.

All we heard was Clint leaning over, going, Are you still my little teddy bee?

We backed out, slowly closed the door.

We came back and we're banging on the wall and we rattled the door.

And we walked in, and there they are, both sitting straight up on the couch.

He thought he got away with it.

He went and took her home.

We were studying.

He came back in, headed for his room, and my friend Craig says, Hey, Clint! Yeah?

He said, Come here a minute.

He came over.

He says, Clint, did you guys have a good time tonight?

Oh, yeah, we have a good time tonight.

What'd you guys do?

Well, you know, I thought he's food and we just go for a while and came back here and talking and took her home.

Really?

What'd you guys talk about?

Oh no, you know the school and we'll have the school and do.

This is good Clint, can I ask you one more question?

He goes, Yeah.

He said, Clint, are you still my little teddy boy?

He turned as red as his hair.

We had WrestleMania III right there.

It was awesome.

We knew Clint was in love.

Because Clint was open in ways that we had never seen before.

He was open in ways we wish we had never seen.

But that is what real love is.

It's that commitment to being real on that level.

That level of complete, this is who I am.

Like it or leave it, this is who I am, and finding that other person that loves us the same way.

There's a last component I want to share with you.

It's also two words.

That love is a complete commitment to getting real and giving unconditionally.

Giving unconditionally.

Probably the most popular verse in Christendom today.

John 3, 16.

And I've read that verse probably a hundred times or more.

But as I was going through this for the first time, and I was praying, God, help me come up with a definition that I can really look for and base my life on.

I was in John 3 that day, reading down, about to get to John 3.16.

And I remember thinking, oh yeah, John 3.16, heard a million times, John 3.16.

I got to it and I looked.

And as I began to read the verse, the ninth word just stopped me.

And it was like it bolted on the page as I read it.

For God so loved the world that he gave, he gave.

No.

He so loved the world that he healed?

No.

He so loved the world that he gave.

His only, one and only Son.

The most precious to him.

That's what he gave.

And he gave it.

He gave him to us, and we would take him and we would punish him with the sins we deserved the punishment of.

And he gave him with no requirements that we would accept that forgiveness.

It was unconditional.

And that's how God loved.

That is a hard concept to grasp.

And as a single guy, it was very difficult for me to grasp.

Oh, I knew how to give wholeheartedly.

I had done that before.

I had given my whole heart, expecting very little in return.

But truth be told, there is that expectation that we get something, if not just appreciation, but not unconditional.

That's a different level.

God decided to teach me this lesson when I was a single guy.

I was in my late 20s.

I was speaking at a college conference up in the Gatlinburg Mountains by the Pidgin River.

I was going to be speaking that morning and I decided to go just chill out.

It was the fall.

I love the fall, and I wanted to see the sun was up, but I wanted to see it come up over the trees that were just electric.

And there was this rock that jutted out over the Pidgin River.

And the water was deep and rushing right under the rock, and I'm just sitting there going, this is incredible.

And then as the sun came up, the colors just exploded, and I'm just like, this is so cool.

The deafening waters and the beautiful colors.

And as I'm sitting there on this rock, something caught my eye.

And I look over, and there was this little bitty girl walking by herself right on the edge of this drop-off into the water.

I mean, it was like a four or five foot drop, and then the water was deep and just rushing, and it scared me because here's this little girl all by herself.

And so I came off the rock and I motioned for her to come over where I was away from the edge.

And she walks over.

It's this little bleach blonde little girl, about that tall.

And when she got to where I was, I'm like, hi.

I said, What's your name?

She goes, What's your name?

I said, I'm Ken.

I said, um, what are you doing down here?

She goes, What are you doing?

I said, I'm skipping rocks.

I said, Have you ever skipped rocks before?

She goes, No.

I said, You want to?

She goes, uh-huh.

I said, Okay.

I said, you take the rock and you throw it, and as I got her distracted throwing the rocks, I said, Is your mom and dad here?

And she goes, uh-huh.

I said, Where are they?

She goes, uh I said, are they up in the cabin there?

She goes, uh-huh.

And I said, Do they know that you're down here?

I don't know.

Okay.

I said, I tell you what, why don't we skip a few more rocks and go tell them you're down here?

She said, okay.

And we skip some more rocks.

And we started to walk up the trail.

As we started to walk up the trail, she grabbed my finger, like kids do with their parents.

I know that now I'm a parent.

Then it just kind of caught me off guard.

I'm like, well, okay, that's good.

You know, she's got my finger, and we're walking up, and I take her up.

Find out it's one of the associates' youngest daughters.

Her name was Tommy, and she was four.

And this little toe-headed little girl.

I had no idea the impression that we had together there that morning.

That night I was just loving the fire.

It was a great room, and I'm sitting on a couch in front of this beautiful picture window in front of a fireplace, and it's just beautiful.

And I'm on this couch by myself, which was very normal for me when I was a single guy.

And by myself, watching the fire out the window, there's this crowd of students around, and then the crowd started to part.

And I look through the crowd, and there's Tommy.

And she makes her way through the crowd.

I'm like, oh, she's so cute.

And then she walks right over to the couch where I am, climbs up on the couch, sits right next to me, scoots over right next to me, nuzzles her shoulder underneath my arm.

Now, girls didn't do that to me when I was single.

Okay, so that caught me off guard.

And I'm just, well, hi.

She said, hi.

I said, what are you doing?

She just smiled.

I said, what are you doing, sweetheart?

And she said, I just wanted to be with you.

I don't know where it came from.

I could not put an explanation to it.

I had the sudden urge to just give her my wallet and give her my keys.

And that messed with my mind.

I could not get that out of my mind.

The next night that next day I'm driving to Nashville to do a show.

For those of you who don't know, I do stand-up comedy for a living, and I'm driving to Nashville, and I'm sitting here talking to God, going, God, this I'm in trouble.

Because this little girl wasn't even my little girl.

She sits next to me.

I'm giving her all my money.

I mean, you can't do that.

And God has never spoken to me audibly.

But that day is the most real I have ever sensed God whisper in my heart.

And as I'm sitting here struggling, going, God, I don't understand.

God whispered in my heart, Ken.

That's exactly how I feel about you every day.

I just wanted you to catch a glimpse.

And I have never forgotten that moment.

Men and women, God longs to give us everything good.

I have three kids of my own, and I have a little seven-year-old toe-headed little girl that I would empty my wallet to every day.

And I want her to have everything good, and I'll do anything for her.

And that's what God wants us to realize He has for us.

I have a friend Stan, and he was in my groom's room.

And as we're in the groom's room, he gave me a couple pieces of advice.

And I'll never forget one because Stan is just a total cut-up.

The first advice he gave me was, Ken, he says they should change the wedding vows.

I said, What do you mean?

He says, to men and women, they'd be the women they need to stay the same.

Do you take him, better or worse, rich or poor, sickness, health, death, do you part?

I said, Great.

He says to women, to men they need to read some version of Miranda rights.

You have the right to remain silent.

Because anything you say can and will be misunderstood.

And it'll be used against you.

That's the kind of guy Stan is.

He's a cut-up, and then he said, Ken, can I give you a piece of advice?

And I'm like, yeah.

And he says, Ken, if you go into this marriage looking for Heather to make you happy, to bring you fulfillment, you'll spend the rest of your life disappointed and frustrated.

He says, But if you'll go in thinking, God, how do you want to bring her joy?

And how will you let me help bring her fulfillment?

And you will focus on her and being used by God to bring her fulfillment and meaning and joy.

Then you will spend the rest of your life with something to do and a fullness and a joy that you cannot imagine.

Because it's not about what you get, it's about what you give.

And I never forgot that.

And he said, give unconditionally, expecting nothing in return.

Well, that's my definition.

And for 15 years, I can tell you it has come up over and over and over and over, and I've revisited it a hundred times.

I don't know that it can be less than that, it can certainly be more.

You may want to change some components, but I guarantee you, until we have a definition and know what we're looking for, we will not find it.

So find that definition.

I know it's probably come up with a lot of questions, and I want to encourage you in twofold.

One is that I'm going to be in the back tonight, and I look forward to answering any questions I can immediately.

But two, I'm also going to have a Facebook page and we'll post that on my site and here next week.

And I'm going to have a time during the week that you can log in.

Hey, I got a question about this, and I'm going to be answering those questions as we go.

And it is going to be an absolute joy.

So, with that in mind, I just want to close us in a word of prayer, and then we're going to hang out.

And I really hope that you can make it again next week and be sure to bring a friend with you.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you for your word.

And thank you most of all for your example and the way you love us.

And Lord, I just ask that you would just bless this time these next several weeks.

And as we make the effort to be here, and Lord, I pray that you would speak individually to these men and women right where they are, heal our pains and our hurts and our frustrations and our failures.

But Father, give us a vision for who you meant for us to be.

And that we can fulfill and become and prepare to find the love that you put this desire in our heart for.

Draw us to that.

Teach us.

And it is only through your precious Son Christ we can pray.

Speak to us through your Spirit.

Amen.