Saturday 27 August 2011

Love

There it is. The topic that every great and small philosopher, poet, musician, pastor, priest, thinker, touches on and elaborates their point of view. It is such a grand topic because it is common among all cultures and people. It is something inherent to our very existence as humanity. But the question is how do we define love? Every person has different ideas about it. Of course many of these ideas overlap, but there is some shade of nuance that makes each person unique. Is love an emotion? A character quality? An action? A virtue? A vice? Something to be used? Something to be cherished? Something to be attained? Something to be given? The list goes on and on.

The topic most often falls upon either romance, that is the intimate relationships between a man and a woman, or in Christian circles the love of God as manifest chiefly through Christ, but also through many different mediums as well.

It would be very easy to continue and write an entire book on these things and many books have been written on the subject. But I'll just point out one thing that I think is relevant that God has begun to reveal and exhibit in my life.

I have recently begun a romantic relationship with a young woman whom I am rapidly falling in love with. And in this sense I am talking about the emotions, attraction, hopes, dreams, etc. I feel towards this woman. But it didn't start out that way. In fact, I had very few emotions concerning her for quite some time except trepidation. But I made a choice. I think love is a choice. Yes, it is actions, the way we treat people, and even emotions. But before any of that can happen a person has to make a choice. The choice is whether to love or not. We make the choice every day when we decide to be kind to our enemies, or to snub the rude driver who just cut us off. I think how we act and how we feel are a result of that choice. So when I made that choice I knew that my actions would fall in line with that choice and the emotions that we so often attribute as love itself would come as well. I've learned that our idea of love can not be dependent on the emotions. Emotions can not be the basis for our love, but must be the natural result of our love. God chose to love us and as a result he sent His Son to be a substitute for our punishment in order to redeem us. It has radically changed all of our existences on a core level. And we are called to love like Christ loved. We need to make a choice, and I've made mine concerning Christ and concerning Brenda. What choice will you make?

For His Glorious Name,
Jason

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