I once wrote a post of the same title in which I tried to work out just what it is we mean by "love." Today, with a troubled heart, I am undertaking a similar task. So many people speak of love that it almost goes without a thought.
I have observed people utterly crushed by love. I've seen it on television, heard it in song lyrics, and read it in books. The story around which my entire life is based is about a man who was God and took upon himself the weight of every evil in the world for love. To try and actually understand just what that entailed seems, at present, very difficult. Maybe that's the rotten truth about love: it demolishes us with such grim efficiency, leaving us so broken in spirit that it's difficult to actually conceive of still being alive. Even so, it remains. It remains because it must. Beneath the taint of humanity, beneath the pain and hardships and evils, it is still possible to understand that love has all the characteristics listed by Paul: patient, kind, not jealous, not arrogant, not acting unbecomingly, not seeking its own, not provoked, not taking into account wrongs suffered, not rejoicing in unrighteousness but truth, and of course bearing, believing, hoping, and enduring all things.
Love never fails.
This fundamental truth can be fairly easily recognized. When we are at our best, full of love and acting accordingly, we bring joy both to ourselves and to those around us. When we are at our worst there is conflict, suffering, and pain. Nevertheless, we always turn back around, because love nudges us in the right direction. We feel guilt for hasty actions or words, mean-spirited or sarcastic, intended to hurt or simply thoughtless, that bring harm to loved ones.
Maybe there is no rotten truth about love, after all. Maybe it's just the truth about us: we dig our own spiritual and emotional graves. For one person to take upon themself this kind of misery on behalf of every human that has ever and will ever live...death would seem to be a relief. To do this in the name of love is to give a great indication as to what power love actually has. It is a weighty perspective with which to view things. And maybe we just can't really understand love without such a perspective.
What a messed up world this is.
I have observed people utterly crushed by love. I've seen it on television, heard it in song lyrics, and read it in books. The story around which my entire life is based is about a man who was God and took upon himself the weight of every evil in the world for love. To try and actually understand just what that entailed seems, at present, very difficult. Maybe that's the rotten truth about love: it demolishes us with such grim efficiency, leaving us so broken in spirit that it's difficult to actually conceive of still being alive. Even so, it remains. It remains because it must. Beneath the taint of humanity, beneath the pain and hardships and evils, it is still possible to understand that love has all the characteristics listed by Paul: patient, kind, not jealous, not arrogant, not acting unbecomingly, not seeking its own, not provoked, not taking into account wrongs suffered, not rejoicing in unrighteousness but truth, and of course bearing, believing, hoping, and enduring all things.
Love never fails.
This fundamental truth can be fairly easily recognized. When we are at our best, full of love and acting accordingly, we bring joy both to ourselves and to those around us. When we are at our worst there is conflict, suffering, and pain. Nevertheless, we always turn back around, because love nudges us in the right direction. We feel guilt for hasty actions or words, mean-spirited or sarcastic, intended to hurt or simply thoughtless, that bring harm to loved ones.
Maybe there is no rotten truth about love, after all. Maybe it's just the truth about us: we dig our own spiritual and emotional graves. For one person to take upon themself this kind of misery on behalf of every human that has ever and will ever live...death would seem to be a relief. To do this in the name of love is to give a great indication as to what power love actually has. It is a weighty perspective with which to view things. And maybe we just can't really understand love without such a perspective.
What a messed up world this is.
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