Love is ...

I wonder if the question of “why?” is the only one older that “what is love?” I am going to date myself here. When I was in high school a series of cutesy cherub-like cartoon characters were drawn to illustrate a series of pocket-sized paperback books in a series titled “Love is…”

Poets, prophets, ministers, musicians, teachers, friends, and of course those in love have contributed their thoughts to efforts to answer that all elusive question. All you need is love. Love makes the world go round. Love is all there is. The greatest of these is love. God is love.

As you started reading I hope you didn’t think I had “the” answer to the question of “what is love?” Of course, being the highly opinionated person that I am (yes, I admit it!) I think I have some ideas and I know what love means to me but that is a far cry from knowing “the” answer.

I think the closest we can come to knowing “the” answer to “what is love?” is to contemplate how much God loves us. As I type, numerous verses about love from the Bible are whirling through my mind. In an effort to calm the chaos I logged onto biblegateway.com and entered “love” in the key word search using the NIV. I decided to limit the search just to the New Testament. My search resulted in 258 verses! So, if you wonder what the Bible says about love this is a good place to start!

I do know what I believe about love. I believe love is the key to relationships … all of our relationships … our relationship to God … our relationship to family and friends … our relationship to our significant other … our relationship to our fellow human beings … and even our relationship to ourselves. I believe the love God has for us is unconditional and that we are to love unconditionally.

Could it be that there is so much anger, hate, injustice, oppression, distrust, enmity, hostility, violence, prejudice, unfairness, and inequality in the world today because it is easier to feel and act on the feelings of these negative emotions than to love unconditionally?

When we pray "The Lord's Prayer" asking for ... your kingdom come. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven (John 11:2) are we asking for God's unconditional love to be what is prevalent in our lives? I wonder.