A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.
John 13:34-35
When I first met my husband, I asked him what his key value for life was. “Love,” he said. “All I’ve ever wanted out of life was to love and be loved in return.” Something in my heart swelled in resonation when he said that, and I recognized it as a universal desire to be fully seen and fully received. It’s so integrated in the human experience, people have laid down their lives, given everything they had and even unleashed destruction all in the name of love.
For as beautiful as an idea that Love is an outward focused power that affects everything it touches, I have seen and experienced it more as an inward focused whirlpool, sucking in anything that looks like affection, or admiration. We may have in our minds that it’s supposed to be a passionate consideration for another, but it usually displays as an affinity for. Why is what’s in our heart so different than what gets played out in our relationships? It’s because our relationships aren’t fulfilling in the way we thought they would be. They didn’t possess enough gravity for us to revolve our lives around, but they are set up to be the source by which we are fully seen and fully received, so we try to extract that from our relationship. The only way to get Love manifesting as the ideal we know it should be is to put Jesus at the center of our desire for it. Our lives were always supposed to revolve around Him, and He knows more about the desires of our heart than we are conscious of. Today, we open our dysfunctional love which does not act as it knows it should and turn it back toward Jesus.
Reflection
What is currently holding itself as wanting to be your source of love?
We love God because He first loved us. How can that be an aid to you putting Jesus as the center of your affection and devotion?
Prayer
Jesus, I thank you for Your perfect love, which is patient and kind and casts out all fear I have of rejection. I open my dysfunctional, selfish love and ask that you would draw me closer to your heart, and teach me what you mean when you talk of love. Thank you that while I was still opposed to you, you died because you loved me first, so that I might trust that you know me fully, and embrace me wholly. Amen
