My Love Lesson

Love.

So I’ve been attempting to wrap my mind around this word, love. During the past few days, I’ve been keeping a mental list of phrases I’ve heard people use this word. Some that I have overheard are:

1. “Don’t you just love this heat?”
2. “I love your sister, she’s the best.”
3. “I love naps.”
4. “I love you” Said from my friend to her husband
5. “I love how you twist everything I say into an argument” Said by one angry mother to her hyper daughter in the Wal-Mart checkout line.
6. “I love volunteering and helping” and
7. “I will always love you.”

I think I’ve always struggled with defining love, acting love, saying love and being love. I remember in college I used to ask my close girlfriends to continually pray that I would just ‘love’ people. I even bought a few books spelling out God’s love and how that should look in my every day fellowship with others. I thought I had it figured out once. I thought for a few years, that love was just love. Maybe I was overanalyzing things again. My friend Karl and I often joke about overanalyzing everything and maybe this was one of those moments. Maybe love was just love. Plain and simple.

About five years ago I met a friend by the name of Jeremy. He and I had a strong friendship. I felt he needed love. His family life was never loving. He experienced abuse, hatred and disappointment his entire life. Meeting him came right in the middle of my ‘love lesson’ from God. I thought, well isn’t this perfect…I don’t know how to fully love, yet God is bringing me someone to practice on. Jeremy and I bonded quickly, and our friendship was based on trust and truth, so I thought. Just when I thought love was easy, it wasn’t. Over a few months, it became so hard to love Jeremy. How in the world was I supposed to love someone who lied to me, who didn’t show me respect? I was just about to throw in the towel and then the Holy Spirit led me to the heart of love.

Now, I must confess that growing up I cringed when I thought about going to a wedding, only because I was sick and tired of hearing 1 Corinthians 13:4…”Love is patient, Love is kind…” You all know that by heart. It’s on every wedding invitation, every thank you card and usually it’s read at most ceremonies. So the night I was sitting on my bedroom floor in tears because I didn’t know how I could possible love this friend and the Lord brought be this scripture, you can only imagine my reaction. I literally laughed out loud and thought there is no way, after all these years, I’m going to learn love from this annoying passage. Oh the learning I had to do! Shame on me.

For the next year, I studied 1 Corinthians 13:4. I studied it in and out, up and down, backwards and forwards. I studied what context love was being taught in that passage. I started journaling about my love encounters with this friend and my love encounters with my Jesus. How do I show love to Jeremy amongst the hurt he has caused me? And in return, how does my Jesus show love to me amongst the hurt I have caused Him. What a lesson to be learned.
In this love lesson, I learned agape. Agape love. Agape is Greek for ‘love.’ But let’s dig a little deeper. What exactly does agape mean? The concept of agape is God’s love for humanity. This love is selfless, undeserving, never-ending and most importantly self-sacrificial. He loves me selflessly. I am never deserving of His love. After all my mistakes and holes I’ve dug, I don’t deserve it. Yet He freely gives. Over abundantly gives. It is never ending. There is nothing I can do to stop Him from loving me. I can’t cancel my subscription, I can’t mess up enough. It never ends. Then comes the most powerful and important part. He loved me so much; He agape me to the extent of sacrifice.

He sacrificed His life.

Because he agape me.

Me, a sinner.

That my friends, is love.

And guess what? He calls us to love like He loved. He says, have a heart like Jesus. Because I have forgiven you, I want you to forgive. And because I have loved you, you also are to love. This love lesson was intense. He reminded me, in the subtle way the Lord does, that this love lesson was something to be watered and would grow with time. He reminded me that continually growing in His word, my love would also grow.

So this is my passion in life. I yearn to fully be chasing after God’s heart so that in my life, I might define love, I might learn love, I might show love and that I might be love.

He agape you, so that you might agape others.

Love freely. Love like Jesus.