"These three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these...is Love." 1 Cor 13:23
Faith, hope, and love.
Words, emotions, feelings, actions--all things we feel every day. But do we truly understand their gravity?
We have faith. We have faith something greater than ourselves exist. We have faith in the Lord above. We have faith in each other, that we can each achieve our own dreams. This faith feeds our hope. Our hope to wake up each morning; our hope to fulfill each day; our hope in the future. These further lead to LOVE.
Love is known to be quite a subjective idea. We see it as the absence of hate: by why should we be so passive about such a virtue that is found at the core of our lives?
Let's try a more active definition.
If love is the driving force of goodness in this earthly and temporary world, is love temporary, too?
Absolutely not. Love is eternal, because love stems from God's gifts. He has loved us so deeply as to mold us so perfectly imperfect. He has taken time to create each bump and crevice within us when He could have easily made us all the same. He could have chosen a mold for girls and a mold for boys and made each of us the same as the last. BUT that would be lazy. God loves us so much that He has chosen to sculpt each of us to better each other. Our differences are not meant to divide us; they are meant to unite us with one another. They are meant to compliment each other for what we may lack in some ways. However, these lackings do not imply we are less than the other; these lackings fulfill others' strengths in the same way their lackings fulfill our strengths.
For example, if everyone were created to be the same, there would be absolutely no room for growth. So, look at it this way: if every man was called to play baseball, football would not exist. It is because of our God-granted gifts and talents that we are set apart from one another--not to divide us, but to unite us. We become inspired by others' gifts in order to embrace our own. We wish to utilize our gifts as others do to fulfill these callings within faith, hope, and love. We are called to various things because it is these different callings that we create the Body of Christ.
LOVE can be broken down into four areas:
Leaving everything in God's hands (1 Peter 5:7), Owning up to your sins (John 8:7), Various blessings (James 1:17), and Enjoying it all (James 1:2-3).
L.O.V.E. -- embodied in Heavenly trust, acknowledging our humanity and its limits while embracing the joys in every blessing, all while enjoying it all while we are living among this Earth.
However, love is not exactly easy. In fact, love is rather difficult sometimes. Surely we "know" we're called to love everyone, but do we do that? Do we truly love the bully from middle school? Or the high school mean girls? Or the opinionated politician? How about the man who abused his wife? Do we really love these people? Love is more so an exercise these days than a natural talent. We need to remind ourselves to love the people who are hard to love. It is through exercising love that it becomes a habit, and soon we will love more intentionally without even consciously realizing it. That--that unconscious but evident love--is when we have perfected the art of living as loving Christians. Love's acronym above relies on more than simply holding the door open for someone you aren't a fan of; it's allowing God's blessings to invade your heart and letting these blessings become evident through your everyday life. Treating a homeless man the same way you'd treat a celebrity. Forgetting those initial judgments and learning that middle school bully was being abused at home. Love is found in compassion. Love is compassion. We're humans who sometimes judge every person who enters the room; acknowledge this. Become aware of yourself. This is when you beat those judgments and can search for the ways to better love these people. Search for their souls beyond the surfaces, this is when you start loving and stop losing yourself to this secular world.
L.O.V.E. is the answer. And it's the greatest.
