Love… What is it?
As humans (especially women), I think we focus so much on the “feelings” that are associated with love, and forget what love truly is or why it exists.
I began to evaluate love and the feelings that I feel towards those that I love in all aspects, those I love now, or have before. With that, I started to ask myself why I “feel” those things. Where do those feelings come from?
These questions began to flow… in regards to all types of relationships we have as humans… Familial, Romantic, Friendships, etc..
Why and how can someone that I had never known before mean so much to me?
Why does what they do affect me so much?
Why do I want to spend so much time with them?
Why does what they do and decisions they make affect me so much?
Why can something they decide hurt when it doesn’t directly effect me?
Why does their “lack of” anything hurt so much? Lack of attention, lack of time, lack of effort, etc…
Why does their well being interest me so much?
Why do I care so much about how they look to others? Their testimony?
Why does it bother me when they say they love me and don’t act like it?
Why do I care so much if they don’t put effort into our relationship? I lived my whole life without them.
It would be natural for one to think the answer to these questions is because you love them.
But as I asked myself all of these questions, The only answer that came to mind was Jesus.
I believe that Jesus not only gave us the ability to feel love so that we can experience His love, and share it, but so that we can understand just a tiny bit of how He feels towards us.
As humans we tend to need to experience something in the “human and physical realm” to be able to attribute it and understand it better in the “spiritual and divine realm.”
With that same breath I want to say that I believe that God also gave us the opportunity to experience love here, on earth, amongst each other, so that we can understand what love feels like, but also to show us how broken and imperfect human love is.
No matter how hard we try, we are sinful and imperfect, so our love will only be a shadow of God’s love towards us.
The contrast between human love and and Godly love is incredible.
If we sit back and truly examine it, even towards the person we love the most on this earth, we’ll realize…
How impatient our love is. How jealous our love is. How prideful our love is. How as perfect as we try to love another, we still dishonor each other at times. How we put ourselves above those that we love. How we still get angry with those that we love. We still keep grudges towards those we love. We still lie to those we love. We sometimes abandon, don’t believe and give up on those that we love. We fail those that we love, and sometimes we treat those that we say we love with everything EXCEPT love.
Sounds opposite as to what God says love is, huh?
Because God says that:
Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
1 Corinthians 13:4-11a
And if you really want to get technical… God IS love. His love is Agape Love.
Agape is the highest form of love. An unconditional love. A sacrificial love. The love displayed by Christ on Calvary.
Not only is God love, and gives us the ability to feel and understand it, but God CHOOSES to love us.
To love someone is to choose to love them, it’s not only the feeling.
God has given us the gift of not only experiencing love, but also giving it. God could have just said that He loves us and left it at that, but because He is love, He’s allowed us to experience love… to experience Him.
If we expect to be able to love or experience love without God, then what we will actually experience is like an off brand love. It’s a fake. It’s a love in bondage. It’s a broken love. A selfish love.
A relationship with God is the only place where we experience full love. True love. Never ending love.
A relationship with God is the only thing that will allow us to love the way that He does. We will still fall short because we’re human, but He helps us to give grace, be patient, not give up, be selfless, be forgiving, be trusting, be hopeful & endure to the end.
This brings me to my next and last point… I think sometimes we forget that if we feel these things towards mere humans that will ultimately fail us, let’s think truly about HOW MUCH God loves us. How He feels when we don’t spend time with Him. How our actions hurt Him. How He longs to be in every detail of our lives, yet we abandon Him. We put Him last in our lives. We give Him our left over time.
Let’s evaluate our lives…
If you find yourself today feeling unloved, or struggling to love.. I want you to first evaluate your own life. Do you have a personal relationship with God? Do you know Him? He longs to know you… even MORE than you long for a relationship or even more than you long to feel loved. He wants you.
If the answer is no, then message me! That is the first place to start.
If you’re answer was yes… then I want you to evaluate your own life, your relationship with Him. What does that look like? How much time do you spend with Him, talking with Him? Are there areas in your life where you might just need to die to your own desires, to your own selfishness? Are you putting Him first or last?
You can know what true love is TODAY. Right now. You can know what it feels like to be pursued. To know the one that will never leave you. Never forsake you.