"Love" is a word thrown around much too freely, in my opinion. Love lives through adversity, through injustice, through the times we feel most defeated. That is where we find just how much we truly love one another.
Love survives the pain and never acts unbecomingly. Love takes hits and does not react with revenge at it's heart. Love cannot hate. Love cannot do anything but love, in spite of what it must endure.
Do we love simply when others are behaving how we think they should? How we desperately need them to? Do we love only when the one we say we love, compliments who we are? Or do we throw stones at our offender? Do we alienate them because they hurt us and knocked us off our feet with their actions, or do we learn patience in the midst of the storm? Are we capable of holding onto hope, when there seems none exists?
Do we resort to throwing stones, or at least, stony stares, at those we believe to have made a horrible mistake? Or do we simply ignore them? You know the ones..the ones we told a long time ago that we loved. Those who we believe to have sinned against all things holy...and US! Those people. I'm reminded of the Scripture in John 8:7, where Jesus was writing in the sand, as those who stood around Him were wanting to stone a woman caught in adultery. By-the-way, does anyone know where the guy was? Why wasn't HE brought to Jesus, as well? I guess she should have known better. He was just doing what guys do. Right? It had to be all her. He was just an innocent by-stander. Jesus had another thought about all that. He told them, "He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."
For the last few years, I have been fascinated with this powerful word. Love; the word many of us seem to use when we actually mean, "You make me happy." Love was never intended to make us happy. Grateful, maybe...but, happy? Happy is as emotion that comes from being satisfied with an outcome. May I say, it's even a selfish emotion? An emotion that fades and is never consistent. It's prominent one day, and the next, not so much. We may have even grown to hate, what we thought we once "loved." And, I say it all too often, myself! "I LOVE this weather!" "I LOVE how she/he looks (or carries themselves)!" "I LOVE this pizza!" "I LOVE YOU!?" And, let's not forget the sentimental love phrase, "I love you like you were one of my own." Or, "I'll always love you!" What happens to that love once the storms of life hit? Is that love still visible? Does our heart scream in pain because of the love we shared with another and now seems distant? And how do we show it, if it does still remain? Can love actually be alive one day and not the next? I think not. Love is stable...always. Love is an action. It has your back when you've fallen. It never spreads gossip about you. It never kicks you when you're down. Never. Do we love...or are we just happy in the moment?
Love came to us as a sacrifice. To love is to sacrifice, even when the other seems to have been captured by aliens. Love is visible for all to see. Love is demonstrated. It seems that we honor our personal feelings above almost everything. We do what we want when we want because we "feel" like it. And if we don't "feel" like it, we don't do it. We need to know what love is. What it looks like when acted out.
According to I Corinthians 13:4-8a
1. Love is patient (suffers a long time, if need be)
2. Love is kind (but often tough)
3. Love is not jealous (jealousy cannot exist with love in the same heart)
4. Love does not brag (showing spiritual immaturity)
5. Love is not arrogant (grasping for power...control...disrespectful)
6. Love does not act unbecomingly (rude actions)
7. Love does not seek it's own agenda (demanding, dominating)
8. Love is not provoked (not given to emotional outbursts)
9. Love does not take into account a wrong suffered (does not hang onto reminders of wrongs)
10. Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth (does not pat themselves on the back when someone has a shortcoming, because "they would never do that.")
11. Love bears all things (protects others)
12. Love believes all things (gives others the benefit of the doubt)
13. Love hopes all things (refuses to take failure as final)
14. Love endures all things (holds fast to the people it loves)
15. Love never fails ('nuff said)
We come up short, many times, thinking we really show love easily, when in reality, we show love when it is reciprocated to our satisfaction. It's a tough one, to be sure. None of us love perfectly, but we can grow in our understanding and application of love. We just need to identify it.
All three types of love, Eros (Greek for desire & longing), Philos (a friend that sticks closer than a brother, type of love), and Agape (unconditional love for anyone & everyone), are all governed by the above description. So...do we really love?
When God gets my attention on something, and won't allow me to shake it loose...when He continues to bring it into my conscience thoughts, I must ask myself, "What am I missing? What have I yet to learn about this?" And it is beating at my door today.
As always, here you'll find me...in Mary's World.
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