As I get older, a key truth of life has become abundantly clear to me; love is necessary. Whether you are a Jesus follower, like me, or not, I hope this simple truth resonates with you at some level. But I'd like you to consider that, actually, love is the central ingredient to so many aspects of what we think of as a successful life. As a Christian, one of the key Bible passages is John 3:16 that tells briefly why Christianity exists. "For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life." (NET).
In the very first line is love. God loves us humans and he wants us to love him back. He wants us to love each other. In 1 Corinthians 13, the Apostle Paul writes about love in depth. He explains what love is and what it is not. True, it's not a complete analysis of love, but it's a good passage to study carefully. He sums it up by saying (and you've likely heard this before), "But the greatest of these is love." (NET) Love is the greatest. It just simply is. But one of the attributes that Paul brings out, and I think really needs to be examined these days especially, is that love never fails.
I was inspired by this video on YouTube by Rabbi Twerski: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMcHtSjtNBY. I took his analogy about fish and I adapted it to something American teens might more readily identify with: pizza. You say you love pizza and then you cut it, you put in your mouth and you chew it, tearing it to little pieces, and it goes down into your body where it's digested and turned into poop. Is that how you treat people who you love? You don't love pizza - that's not true. You love how pizza tastes, how it's filling, and maybe how it's cheap and easy to make. You love what pizza does for you. You love yourself. Pizza love is not real love and yet so many people say that they love their family or friends or special friends, when really they just love what those people do ... or that person does ... for them. They love how they are made to feel, how they are made to laugh, or how they are made happy. That's not love for others. That's self love.
Love is the sacrificial giving of yourself for another or others with no interested gain on your part. You give of your time, your money/stuff, or your personality to help that other person be better, safer, healthier, happier, etc. and you get nothing back. Many people go through their whole lives and never know this kind of love. Children grow up never learning to love their parents and then as parents they never truly love their children. People get married and divorced, shack up, have short lived "relationships" and "make love" but never really know how to love. How do I know? Because these loves fail. Love never fails. That's a kind of test right there. There is no such thing as falling out of love. Does your love grow cold, impatient, weary, selfish? It's not love.
One of the things I want to do with this latest reboot of this site is to explore this idea of genuine love. I hope you'll come along for the journey. If you do, hit me up in the comments and let me know, please.
Thanks,
Walt