Sunday, April 03, 2011

Love One Another

Online dating companies, self help authors, life coaches and counselors all have 1 thing in common; they all promise to help us get one step closer to love. I sat in church today meditating on the loss of a fellow parishioner. This person spent his lifetime struggling with a drug addiction. He loved God, loved his mother and loved those in the church. Each person during the eulogy mentioned the same fact, that the deceased loved God and others.

It was then that it hit me. So many of my posts have been bemoaning loneliness, singleness, lack or loss of family. Truth be told, my feelings are pointing to a condition that is hard to erase. I have a gnawing need and an insatiable appetite for love. This need can suffocate others. Don't we all want love though? Millions of people log in to online dating services everyday, songs are written obsessively about it and most float down the church aisle on their wedding day hoping that statement "I do" will help them feel the ever eternal flame of love. What is love though? Shakespeare asked whether it was a fancy or a feeling. Does it satisfy us? The person who went down the aisle saying I do, later on says, emphatically, I don't! No wonder so many of us have multiple sexual partners, several x-spouses and enough heart break to bury us. We spend a lifetime looking for love in all the wrong places.

Let me return to today's scene at church. I wish I could more adequately describe the feeling I had while there. We were all mourning the loss of this beloved parishioner whose untimely death had shaken our faith. He struggled with drug addiction, never married and felt so alone prior to his death. Where were the positive fruits of his life? Where was God in all of this? The fruit was unrecognizable in his life but completely perceptible in his death. He left us one legacy, his love; that's a great legacy indeed!

The Bible tells us "8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away." Lord, we are such imperfect beings. We're born in sin but we can die free from it. Death doesn't touch the saint because we choose to willingly give Jesus our life while we're living. There are parts we may struggle with until our death but all in all, You have loved us and have been in us. Keep us in Your love. Help us not to work too hard at getting temporary love but rather help us to earnestly seek out the eternal, heavenly kind. It is so different and so satisfying! Ensconced in that love is all that we need - the faith, the strength and the love for each other and for You. Increase our faith. We can never love you by ourselves. We love Him because He first loved us.

What path leads us to the most satisfying love of our lives? The Bible tells us "Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me." I think love is multidimensional. We're not meant to absorb love and selfishly use it for our own selves. We're meant to absorb Christ's love and diffuse it.  John 13:34-35 tells us that we must love one another. Jesus told his disciples that is how others would recognize the Christian, by their love for one another. To further emphasize the importance of loving on another 1 John 4:7-8 tells us not only to love one another but says "He who does not love does not know God, for God is love."

Lord, teach me not only to pray and read my Bible daily but also to love others. This is something I know I cannot do by myself. This is a love that must be infused in my heart by divine grace. Start the work in me.

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