Four Letter Word

I’ve always wanted to be the kind of person who could write about love. And actually, back in 2007, I did. And it was horrible. It was a ridiculously unnecessarily long essay about how love didn’t exist. I wish I could go back in time and smack myself when I decided to write that thing.

Not only do I believe in the existence of love, but I think it’s the most powerful thing we have as humans. And I’m not talking about the stuff we call love; the shallow, temporary, fading, conditional love that some of us have accepted. I’m talking about God Himself; because God IS love (you’re welcome, 1^st grade Sunday School teacher).

I heard a sermon yesterday about determining what will be the center of our lives. Whether we choose to have a self-centered life or a God-centered life. The analogy given was that of a pie. And how most of us decide to give God a piece of our life-pie, and then we have other segments dedicated to work, relationships, etc. The analogy went further to say that if God was at the center of our lives, then He wouldn’t need a piece…He would be the filling. If Christ was our filling, we would respond to any and every situation as He would. We would have the mind of Christ. And I think that mind is a mind of love.

John 15:13 says: “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” I consider that to be the fundamental of love. Once we understand John 15:13, then we can test it with 1 Corinthians 13. And isn’t that what Christ did? Didn’t He lay down His life for His friends? I think it’s one of the reasons we call Christ, love.

So in my mind, as I tied the two together, I decided that if I were to choose God as the center of my life, then I would have to learn how to love. Correctly. And if love is laying down your life for another, then you cannot choose to have a self-centered life. It would be mutually exclusive (that was for all my academic blog readers).

I think if I could start living my life with that mindset, then I would never have to question whether I was acting according to God’s will or not. And that, my computer friends, is peace on earth.