I once heard a definition for love that has always stuck with me: :"Love cares for, provides for, and protects the well-being of the one loved." We have heard it said that love is not a feeling but it is an action. There are many examples in Scripture that support this understanding. For example: "Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." (1 John 3:18) Jesus said there was no greater love than a person lay down their life for their friend.
Love is a tricky thing. It is a word that is used very loosely. We can "love ice cream" and we can "love God and others" meaning a very different type of love.
If love is an action more than a feeling then I am asking myself the question: "who do I really love"?
We are not commanded in Scripture to "like" everyone, we are told to "love" everyone. Even those who hurt us, who speak badly of us, those who mistreat us, those who are even our enemies.
Jesus said that people will know who are His followers if they live lives of love.
I know that my love is imperfect, yet God's love is perfect. "God is love." He is the very definition of love and He lives in me, therefore I can love the unlovely and unlovable because He does.
I dream of the day when I will be so consumed in God's love that love for others will be the first response from my heart when I get hurt by others or people disappoint me.
Lets pray together:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon:
where there is doubt, faith ;
where there is despair, hope
where there is darkness, light
where there is sadness, joy
O divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen. (Prayer of St. Francis)
