Love is… Seeing

7-1-18

Think about your favorite book or movie. I’m going to guess it has at least a minor love story. Am I right? Love is powerful, important, and enchanting. People search for it and mourn it when it’s gone. It can be love between significant others, friends, or family, but it changes our lives. So what exactly is love?The Bible talks about several kinds of love: between family, husband and wife, friends, and love like God’s. That’s the one I want us to talk about.

It’s called agape.

And it’s awesome.

It’s also hard.

Take John 13:34:

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

*Deep breath* We’re supposed to love like Jesus? So how did He love?

First let’s think about how He loved by seeing.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. – Romans 5:8

There’s a saying that love is blind. I understand the sentiment, that we don’t want to focus on people’s flaws, but I think there may be a better way to look at it. I think love is wide-eyed. God, and Jesus, loved us enough that Jesus died to save us, even being completely aware we aren’t perfect.

Truly loving someone doesn’t mean ignoring their mistakes. It means knowing their mistakes and choosing to love them anyway. Loving for the good that they are. Loving for their inherent worth, because we are all made in God’s image.

My husband has seen me on my good days, but he has also seen me at my worst. When I’m not graceful or put together and not pleasant to be around. He’s seen me mad enough to want to throw things like I saw on a documentary once where, in another country, they take workers outside and let them smash vases and stuff for stress relief. He’s seen me so discouraged that I want to just throw my hands up and run off to the beach, never to be heard from again.

And you know what?

He still loves me.

If you’re married, I hope you have a love like that. If you aren’t, wait until you find it.

It’s so comforting to know by experience, not just in my head, that when I’m not at my best, he isn’t going to turn me back in. That’s how God is. We can’t go so far from Him that He won’t let us come back. He never walks away. Only we can do that.

It’s that love, that seeing kind of love, that we need to show each other. If God in His perfection can do that for us, who cost Him His Son, surely we can do that for each other.

What about you? Tell me how you can love someone better by seeing them with eyes wide open this week.

May the Lord bless and keep you,

Heather

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