The obvious blog topic for Valentine's day is love. And I fell for it. I can honestly say I've learned a heck of a lot about love in the past 7 months. I've come to more distinctly see what love isn't and more readily see what love is. So in honor of this most cheesy holiday, I've come up with some words and explanations of what love is.
Love is Life, Others, Vulnerability, Encouragement.
Life – Love is a huge part of life, because life's main focus is on relationships. Whether those relationships are with family, friends, coworkers, or significant others, these interactions are at the core of our perceptions, our lives, and our beings. Life is also a huge part of love. How we relate to each other does one of two things. It either gives life or brings death. God has given us the freedom to choose which of those qualities we share with our neighbors by our actions, words and thoughts. The choice to love is the choice to bring life into our relationships and interactions regardless of who they are with.
Others – With the small exception of occasionally needing to learn to love and give grace to ourselves, loving is about others. We love because He first loved us. Even in the first instance of love, it was about the other being. God loved us first and He continues to love us all day, everyday. Love is about giving it to others all day, everyday. And while I'll be the first one to say that isn't always easy, the coolest part about it is that if everyone is giving love, then everyone is also receiving love. Our main goal as believers is to love God and to love others. Love is not selfish. It does not boast. It is not proud. Love keeps no record of wrongs. Love IS patient and kind.
Vulnerability – I dare say, it is impossible to love without vulnerability. And I don't mean on the other person's part, I mean on yours. Love requires that we give trust without it being earned and that we give trust without expecting anything in return. We put our hearts on the line, because that's what Christ did for us. It looks more like, "I love you, so I trust you." Instead of, "I'll give you tiny portions of love as we try this thing out and you continuously prove that I don't need to be fearful of how you may hurt me." The love we have for other people is the same love Christ has for us. We hurt Him pretty much every day in a variety of ways, but His love never fails. It never gives up. It never runs out. By being vulnerable we say, "Here I am. Here's everything I've got. I'm choosing to love you and to give you something very, very precious & valuable to me. I'd really appreciate it if you took good care of it, but even if you don't, I gave it my all." When we do that, we not only allow ourselves to be open and grow, we also create a safe environment for those we love to do the same.
Encouragement – Encouragement is needed for love to grow. The ability to love is highly connected to our ability to accept love, so for many of us, including myself, this means that encouraging ourselves to accept the love God has for us is the first basic step in growing our ability to love. When we start to find our identity in the overwhelming love God has for us, it changes the way we see ourselves. We begin to see ourselves as the sons and daughters of God that we are. Our identity is no longer built on earthly ideas such as our occupation or our past; our identity is built on the very core of our existence, who we are in Christ. God loves us not for what we do, but for who we are, His children, His beautiful creations, His kingdom. Something that I’ve learned on the Race is that love is about seeing people as who they are in their identity in Christ, not what they do. We all have crap we need to be called up out of. We all have dishonoring things we do that we don’t even realize we’re doing. Love is about encouraging one another to be more than we see ourselves as. That’s what God does. When we learn not to view each other as our flaws, but as the truth of what each of us is capable of doing, we start pouring out more love than we even knew we had to give. Encouragement spreads like wildfire, because it’s two sided. When you encourage someone, it also encourages you, because it gives hope and it gives life.
Ok, ok, so I could basically talk about these ideas for forever, but alas, I shall conclude…with a challenge. My challenge to you, reader, is to try loving in a new way this Valentine’s day. Think outside the box on how to show your love to others. I don’t mean bigger flowers or sweeter chocolate. I mean try telling your spouse in person the things you love most about their character, or your friends how much it meant to hang out with them or showing a little more patience to the waitress at a restaurant. Love is contagious. Be the one to spread it around. It’ll change your world. I know it has changed mine.
