Living Like Love

Love is bold, daring, big. It speaks up, steps up, stands strong, extends a hand, gives a voice, humbly serves, and shows others the light. Love isn't confined to a particular job description or title, level of management, age, location, gender, language, race, or social construct. It's the thing we all need, the thing we all crave, the thing that binds us all together. If we let it, love could be the beginning of racial reconciliation, political peace, family stability, crime resolution, and a brighter future for all of us.

Love does things. Right where it is. With whatever it has. Right now. It doesn't wait. It doesn't hold off, hoping someone else will step up. It takes the leap. It moves. In big gestures and small, it sheds a light in the darkness.

I've been inspired a great deal lately by Bob Goff's book Love Does and Jen Hatmaker's book For the Love. Both of these have led me to reconsider how I view others, challenge myself to see them the way God sees them, and treat them accordingly by truly loving them. I want my love to be evident to all. After all, that's how followers of Christ are supposed to be distinguishable, right? If we don't love, how are we any different from the world around us? How can we accomplish anything without love? We can't. Nothing else matters if we don't love well.

 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. -1 Corinthians 13: 1-3

For authoring a blog called "Live like love," I haven't been doing such a great job of practicing what I'm preaching. I tend to go through life on autopilot, keeping my eyes on my own little world, walking the path of least resistance. But I'm being called and challenged to more. Regardless of where I am or what I'm doing with my life, I can love those around me. I can make a conscious effort to make love the driving force behind my actions.

I want to really live my life from a position of love, filtering all of life through that lens. Are my words loving? Are my thoughts loving-- those about others and those about myself? Are my actions loving? Are my attitudes loving? Is my love evident to others? Am I growing in my love for God, the source of all love, the One who loves me more than I can ever fathom and gave me a great example of love to follow? Am I striving to demonstrate love both to those closest to me and those who are strangers or acquaintances, or do I only love those who love me in return?

These questions and the inspiration from the books I've been reading have motivated me to rethink how well I love those around me. They've opened my eyes to the dissonance between how I want to live and how I currently live on a day-to-day basis. In seeing that gap, I have found motivation to challenge myself to love better. And I hope that I will only continue to grow in that as I pursue the meaning of living like love.