I think the hardest thing about being a person is making things matter. By some impossibility, I find myself both oddly comfortable and disturbingly unsatisfied by living a life that just goes through the motions. Perhaps the reason it can be comforting is because my very talented self-deception often convinces me that my endeavors are significant – i.e. my safety and prosperity. The disturbing lack of contentment is a pretty obvious sign that those deceptions are not as meaningful as I might imagine.
The challenge of living, perhaps the true definition of living, is doing something that matters. Carrying emotions that are good. Contemplating thoughts that are true. Doing actions that edify. The word we have created for these things is "love." Love is what matters. Compassion, sacrifice, agony, honesty, and all the things that go along with love are side effects of a life that matters. Not coincidentally, Scripture says that God is love (1 John 4:8). To love is to simultaneusly experience and share the Presence of God. It is all that matters, not just in our relationship with The Divine, but in our relationships with humanity as well.
Another way that Scripture addresses this idea is by talking of salt. "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled." (Matthew 5:13). Love is the flavor of human existence. And without it, we are not truly living.
Unfortunately, much of the Christian world has lost its flavor. In the midst of church practice variations, music tastes, and political positioning, we have lost love as our primary motivation for Christian action. I'm not saying these things don't matter, but they should be viewed in light of our call to love. Instead, our willingness to love is often shadowed by our responses to these.
Are we losing what makes us who we are? Has our self-deception perverted what is truly meant by the word "love"? How do we ensure that what we do and who we are is truly motivated by an adoration for love?
I'm not sure of the answers. But my observations have humbly taught me this lovely, yet frightening, truth…
Without love, music is just a sound. People are just pawns. Money is just a treasure. The sunrise is an accident. Hope is just a dream. And nothing truly matters.
