Love was, is, and will always be the ultimate challenge

At a recent family occasion, the celebration of my wife’s birthday, it was amazing how the presence of an infant — our granddaughter — completely changed the complexion of the family gathering.

We weren’t sure beforehand whether our granddaughter would be able to make it or not but when she did, her mere presence captivated the room and drew attention from every single adult and child present.

Her presence and her interaction with us all transformed the mood from what was an adult get-together to something where all the adults served the child attention that is given without thought.  And everyone had such a good time.  So much joy!  For that time, all adult worries disappeared as we entered the world of the child.

Love is like that.

Love enters and sweeps the room
and captivates everyone’s attention.

Where there is love there is no darkness, for where there is love there is only light.  Where there is love there is no room for hate, for love superintends trust that everyone will respond positively to what is a belief in them, themselves — love.  Think about it for a moment.  Nobody fails to respond to love done consistently and long enough.  And where there is love there is no room for fear, for again, love trusts even as long as love prevails.

But we live in a world that is, to a great and intrinsic degree, devoid of love, because we live in a world devoid of God.  The world wants its own way.  It wants to manufacture its own substitute for love, never quite comprehending that love is from God, and without God what may be presented as love is only a poor counterfeit.

Love was, is, and will always be the ultimate challenge for human beings, because we are not God, and yet we have been made in God’s image, so we are capable of this love.

We only need to abide in God, and our very being emits the fruit of love.  But we do not abide in God enough, and this is to be both understood and rectified — as far as that depends on us.

Now when we come to know that “God is love” it changes things.  There isn’t any point any longer in not feeling good enough that we can’t get love right all the time.

When “God is love,” there is a transcending of guilt and shame and fear.  We’re being called into God’s glorious light and when we start walking in God’s light the darkness cannot come.

Love constantly calls us to something bigger.  It’s accepting that we never ‘make it’, that we never ‘arrive’, when the whole world heralds the idea of making it and arriving, and so ‘making it’ and ‘arriving’ are for us no longer idols we demand or strive for.  We lose interest in ‘making it’ and ‘arriving’.

We lose interest in being right for the sake of being right.  Relationships, and living in harmony, are now more important than being right.  We agree together when we can’t agree, that God is right, and we walk arm-in-arm together in endeavouring to learn that right, which is neither ours nor theirs.  This love is actually a hard thing to live, because we must lose ourselves in the winning of us!

We just see the rabid folly in pretending we are gods.  Finally, we walk in freedom!

We finally understand that progress is enough for us, even as we debunk perfection, though we’re constantly compelled to outdo others in love.  This is no competition that sets us against others, but it is our commitment to the confidence within which God calls us heavenward to a splendid ideal.

If we are ever to be in error,
and that is truly our human default —
morally speaking —
we can know that Love is our guide as we recover.

Love cannot fail us.  But it takes enormous trust at times rescind our pride, our fear, our want of justice in our time and way.  Love will always carry us if only we will submit to it and only it!

What more can be said about Love?  How big and intricate is the universe and everything in it?