L-O-V-E

All my life I have heard that we are to love God and love one another. Funny thing is, it never really clicked with me. It sounded more like a greeting in a Hallmark card then the motto I should live my whole life by. Love is such a tricky and touchy-feely word. I know what it is to love Krista or my parents or even my dog, but to love everyone, to love my friends and my teachers and the people in my school or wherever, that was weird to me. I mean was I supposed to wake up in the morning thinking about different people and how great they are and how I can't wait to see them because "I just love them so much?" Weird.

I also knew that I was to love God and that seemed easy enough to me, because He is God and He died for me. So, to not love Him made a lot less sense then to love Him. I can say most of my life I have felt like I had that one covered. You know, I felt love towards Him and so I loved Him. Done and done.

But over the past two years God has been teaching me a lot about love. I know, two years is a long time, but I guess I am a slow learner, or God is just a really patient teacher. Probably both. Whatever the case is, He has been teaching me about this love thing. And I think the thing that I have come to realize is love is a lot less about a certain level of emotion I feel towards somebody and a lot more about how I treat them. I think this is what Jesus was getting at when He said, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching." It is not just lip service but actually backing it up with how I live. For me this realization has been both good and bad. Good in the sense that I don't have to have a crush on every person I meet. I mean, it isn't all about this feeling I have for someone. So all of that weird, too touchy-feely problem I had with that command is gone. It isn't really about how I "feel" towards a certain person but how I treat them, and in treating them like I would want to be treated I am showing them love. So to me that is good. But it is also bad. It is bad because it isn't just about feelings anymore. (I know, it is complicated, that is why it has taken me two years to begin getting this.) But, when it is not just about feelings then I have to act, I have to do something. A big part of me would much rather just feel love towards someone or towards God than have to really love them by acting on it. Now when I say I love God I realize that means I should be obeying what He is teaching and if I am not then how can I really say I love Him? It would be words without action, it would be hypocritical, it would be shallow. Same goes for others, I need to treat them like I love them by serving, encouraging, looking out for them and doing things that show love. Being married to Krista has taught me a lot about that, because I certainly love her in the feelings kind of way, but I have come to realize that I can tell her I love her a million times in a day and it won't carry much weight if I refuse to clean the dishes for a week or never take out the trash, or if I never take her on a date or treat her special.

Love demands action. That is what God has been teaching me for almost two years now. I reckon He will keep teaching me about it too, seeing that it is the cornerstone of the two greatest commandments in scripture, to love God and to love others. So what about you? Have you ever felt this way? What does loving God and loving others look like to you, in your life?