Doesn’t everyone want to be loved?
I think everyone does, but not everyone realizes it. A lot of people don’t even understand what true love is. Love makes the world go ’round, but hate makes the world go ’round wobbily. Love is the fodder for countless songs of passion, vainly pledging fidelity to the current object of affection.
The Greeks had five different words for love, three of which are normally found in Christian teaching:
Eros (sensual love - root word for erotic)
Philia (friendship — like Philidelphia)
Agape (self-sacrificing love)
Truth be known, Agape is not exclusive to Christianity. In the Greek it could mean being content with a good meal.
The two lesser-known words are
Storge (affection - “I love my children”)
Thelema (desire to achieve - “I’d love to get promoted”)
While the word “love” is used to address each of these concepts, in fact, we need all of them to make the world go ’round. Daily doses of love leave no room for hate. Our prudish position on sexual intimacy refuses to allow that same passion to be the driving force for our exciting, sometimes grueling, journey, yet we freely use the word passionate to describe our various loves for things.
Some folks can only return love when love is offered. Others find it difficult to love when it is not reciprocated. But true love runs so much deeper. It was placed at the center of each of us by our Creator, but is often buried by layers of selfishness and pride.
To be sure, showing love where hate abounds (i.e., to our enemy (?)) is the most difficult thing. We’re commanded in the Bible to love those who hate us, but do we ever get past just showing love, where we really feel love? That, too, is part of the journey. Showing love without feeling it seems phony, but it’s where we must begin. Those who have practiced this presence will overwhelming attest to the fact that it makes them feel better, and they feel ecouraged to press on toward the goal of actually feeling the love.
The real enemy is apathy. Only caring for ourselves, getting our needs met. For this we were certainly not created. Jesus, however, taught that caring for ourselves is a natural and healthy observance. The problem is that we are called to project that same level of caring for those around us. That too is difficult. But I think that what makes it difficult is that we try to see the big picture, and it seems impossible to achieve. That’s why God gives us 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour. Each minute, each hour is given us to try, and retry, to give love.
Our workplace for this activity is as close as spouse, child, parent, sibling or neighbor. Talk about working from home! Receiving love is equally important, but it should never be our focus. We will find that giving love, without expecting a return of same, will often be rewarded in ways that we could not anticipate. I Corthians 13 is my favorite passage on this subject. In it we find that love:
– is patient — is kind — is not envious — is not boastful — is not proud — is not rude — is not self-seeking — is not easily angered — keeps no record of wrongs — does not delight in evil — rejoices with the truth — always protects — always trusts — always hopes — always perseveres.
This, if you haven’t noticed yet, is a picture of the perfect believer. You can look around you at varying degrees of this formula being worked out in others. God is working it out in you. But he won’t make you do it; and he won’t do it for you. Through his discipline he is peeling away the ugliness, resentment and apathy that keeps us from experiencing love. That’s his best love. He cares for you.
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