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"There is an emotional element in the makeup of each human individual, which calls to be expressed in any genuine appreciation and welcoming of another's love, whether it be the love of a friend or a spouse or the love of God in Christ."

J.I. Packer "Keeping in Step with the Spirit"

Why do we need to experience love? Could we not simply exist without that desire? What is it about humanity that requires this aspect of divinity? It is that we are image bearers of God. However, unlike God we are not self-sufficient, but we must rely on God and others for wholeness. God loves and experiences love because that's what he is, humans have to love and experience love because God is teaching us that we cannot, in complete self-sufficiency, survive on our own. We need God just like we need others, plain and simple. We need to be needed and we want to need. The soul left to itself, such as the man who says "I am an island" is the soul left to dry and dissipate under the deadening winds of aloneness. No man, no woman, no child, can understand what it means to live if he or she fails to find and give significant love.

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