What Love Is
“I’m not a smart man, but I know what love is.” So said Forrest to Jenny in one of my favorite movie scenes. Love is a basic human emotion and desire- to give and to receive. Like many aspects of humanity, it is complicated and hard to define. That’s what’s amazing about the understanding Forrest had of the nature of love when he understood few elemental things. Then again, that’s the beauty of love. It’s so basic to us that we all can comprehend it though we don’t understand it completely. Even those who don’t practice it well can understand the “sweet ache that will not go away.”
Something else about love- I can’t explain it, but I know it when I see it. Love is best unexplained and best felt. We all know it that way. Love can be unreal if spoken only. But, when it is felt and evident in actions, there’s nothing more powerful or persuasive than love. It answers all questions and takes no prisoners. This is the reason love is a major theme in the Bible. Hundreds of verses extol and analyze love. Scripture even says, “God is love.” The followers of Christ are known by their expertise in practicing love. At least, they are supposed to be.
We want to get it, and we want to give it. No one is satisfied by one or the other alone. Love is a circular thing. It’s hard for someone who has never received much love to give love. Poems and sonnets declare it. Thousands of songs extol it. We yearn for it, and we all know if our hunger is met. How many people have lived and died never knowing what love is?
In a hurting world full of strangers, it is the obligation of Christ-followers and the church to show love. The love we are to manifest is the type of love that God had for us. This all-encompassing, self-sacrificing love is an oasis in the desert for the thirsty and a banquet for the soul of the famished. This love meets every need of the searching. It has no pretense because it is real. We won’t have to explain it. Everyone will know it- when they see it.
Sterl
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