Not Alone
The Lord reminds me in solitude and in silence: we are not alone; for he is always with us and never will leave us. So much passing talk of love, yet what is love? Who loves me? Truly, who do I love?
I may have known love, you may think. Or love has never found me, you may lament.
Rare time of silence pours in all the questions of life, thoughts of love: lost love, unrequited love, lovers, would-be lovers so you had hoped. Love of your mom or a father not even yours as you see a man pouring out joy into the life of his child at a nearby dinner table may invade your thoughts.
I have remembered a friend, oh so close, who once filled our days together with shared love of life. What ever happened to my best friend I see no more?
Love defined
Love’s imagery in seasons such as this often paints pictures so distant from the touch of our real love life. We question what meaning love truly holds. For love is more than a mere valentine card, candy, flowers, a romantic date. Even a honeymoon to Eden would not fully satisfy love’s desires of unconditional oneness. A brief moment of life now and before may have embraced something more like love, but we can no more define love than the blurry-eyed poem of a love struck teen.
Of course our first definition of love is eros, but eros quickly comes far short of love’s fullest meaning. [ctt title=”Truly the storyline of eros proves to be myth in our romantic lives from first love to last.” tweet=”The arrows of true love pierce a heart irreparably.” coverup=”mM232″]
אָהַב ‘ahab – to love
Human love for one for another includes much more than just sexual love, a true binding of souls between two living complex beings of flesh and bones… even a oneness between ‘broken hearts.’ It includes family, father and mother and dear friends. Love of another, plain and not-so-simple.
Real life beyond the myths of love greatly challenges our sensibilities of meaningful relationships with others. Who do I trust? Who has not wounded the tenderness of my very being?
I will love my child over all others, a parent may say. Or I will love no friend like the one who hurt me. Love, true love of another may be a many splendored thing, but to love another risks all by trusting vulnerability of my soul.
A Higher Love
Do you know this one?
Deuteronomy 6:5 וְאָהַבְתָּ אֵת יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ בְּכָל־לְבָבְךָ וּבְכָל־נַפְשְׁךָ וּבְכָל־מְאֹדֶֽךָ׃
You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
In Hebrew, the same word to love is applied first to the LORD! ‘ahab Yĕhovah ‘elohiym – You shall love the Lord your God.
Jesus calls this the greatest Commandment” in Matthew 22:36-40.
[ctt title=”Love God. Love cannot exclude love of the LORD our God!” tweet=”“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart…” coverup=”1l94c”]
The challenge of love
Who can I love beyond my self? Who can I trust with my tender wounded heart?
Love of God is a challenge for many. Fortunately the Lord exceeds every man and every woman in love by reaching down to our delicate depths with overflowing love, mercy, forgiveness and grace.
Love of a parent or child or dear friend, a mentor, a confidant, a leader or teacher: all become part of the loves of our life. All fall short except the love of God.
Yet how shall we love those we love as unsparingly as the Lord our God?
A true love of others cannot seek to love for our own benefit only, but in humble unconditional service to one also beloved of the Lord. I cannot love as well as God, but in all humility I can try to love another in a way that is better than the selfishness of man.
What love is not
You may have heard love preached at an altar of bride and groom. Or you may have read on a card the great wisdom of God’s love from a letter to the church in Corinth, a city of excess worship of gods of myth and tradition.
Yet Paul did not write the love chapter of 1 Corinthians 13 for a ceremony or only for advice to a husband and wife. This love, as we mentioned before, is so much more.
In Greek, ἀγάπη, agapē love points upward to God’s love as we embrace other souls in this temporary place. The love chapter’s forgotten definition of love is ‘charity’”
Aside from the definitions and niceties, however, let us briefly examine our own hearts for the leaven of what love is not:
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It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing…
A valentine greeting
Think of the valentine message you send to loved ones every day and consider from above what love does not do?
- Does your heart’s greeting to God even approach His love for us?
- Does your gospel for parent or progeny ever appear arrogant or rude? I’m convicted.
- Do you boast to your friend or envy another?
- Worse, at the failings of another do you also ‘rejoice in iniquity?’
Beloved,
Love one another as Christ Jesus loves us.
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