LOVE

If I had to sum up what God has taught me in the past year, I might be tempted to say that I have learned about obedience or joy in suffering or surrender. Yet if I was honest, and took time to process through events and relationships and trials and circumstances, I would say that what God has really been teaching me is how to love him and love others.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” –Matthew 22:37-40

Love is not as easy as we may make it out to be. It is easy to love lovable people, and it is easy to love if we know that we will receive appreciation or affirmation in return.

But what about the unlovable? And how do we love those who have absolutely nothing to offer us? And what does unconditional love mean? How can we be adoring and sacrificial towards others when we live in a society that guides us to measure the time we spend with people or the care we show them as an investment?

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” –I Corinthians 13:4-8

GOD IS LOVE.

I may not have all the answers about how to love, or what love looks like. However, I know that LOVE sums up the creator of the universe and the lover of my soul.

I am starting to see that if I look to the world to understand love, I will fill my soul up with ideas about loving only to “get,” and loving only those who I deem “worthy.”

But if I look to God to understand love, I see that love comes from God, and that by loving one another, we can see God’s presence manifested on earth.