Finding Trust and Love in an Externally Driven Physical World

Love/Hate. Together/Broken. Trust/Fear. Beauty/Unattractive.

With friends getting married, with people searching for love, with friends being alone and the future feeling ominous, I think a lot about this love and desire and attraction. As I talk with friends about external vs internal beauty and the disconnect we have between the two, it rings true since our culture is based on the outside image. The stimulating image. "Seeing is believing." "Love at first sight." When can we break this shallow cycle and look at the person and see their heart and their inner beauty.

But it begs the question, how? How can we look past the external after all these years of brainwashing in our modern advertising world? More and more, people are becoming less and less. We do not know how to communicate ourselves, so we focus on attracting by displaying. And when we realize the emptiness of the shell, the attraction ends. Game over. Again. Back to square one. The problem is I know I fall into this. I try to display, I desire to be attractive, internal and external. But what is the point? Why this desire?

This desire comes back to the desire for love. To be loved and feel loved. But I heard from a youth leader that more kids are so fearful they will live having loved only themselves.

To sum up and really try to be more honest and straightforward rather than vague and ponderous [if that is a word], I know and realize the shallowness of this game and the emptiness of this love but the reality of it in my life and how I live day to day desiring for selfish love but seeing through the emptiness and realizing what it is to truly love your neighbor as yourself. How does that really look? And what is it to love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength [Mark 12:28ff, Matthew 22:36ff ]. I have not figured this out, but it is currently taking a huge chunk of my focus, so please give me your thoughts. Any would be helpful.