I was the visiting speaker that Sunday. A lady, with an air of lonely hurt, and a private agenda related to her church, walked up to me and said, I hope you don’t speak on love. I’m up to here on that thing. Too much said about it. I was tempted to change my theme of the morning, to recall some points on love themes made in years past. We expect love to happen or not happen. It may be seen as an accident. The word is bandied about but understanding is generally lacking, in spite of numerous best sellers, excellent and poor, on the subject. Repeated over and over, the word is permitted to stand for counterfeits in many persons. It is interesting that scholars studying various cultures found that there was one factor, and only one, listed by every respondent. That universal was, and is, love. No human group appears to find life with meaning unless there is some love in it. In some future era, researchers may find another universal, but at this writing, love is the only one identified. Love reflects God. Genuine love has something of the image of God in it.
Love started before the child was conscious of self, but with self interest in it. Did the child love the mother because mother fed him, or warmed him, or cooed to him? Who knows? As many persons find it, love is at the beginning that can be formed into various psychic images influencing attitudes and conduct. The individual forms it, usually from feelings of experience and it then forms the individuals. For example, if children are taught appreciation, they develop love toward those whom they appreciate. The wise parent teaches appreciation because that is in the human soil from which love can grow in health. For man, love does grow, or wither, as it is given or denied attention and nutrition. What is unappreciated is not likely going to be loved.
Perhaps love is cultivated early on with admiration. Children love parents because they are caring. They can lift things. They can negotiate and get on freely. Parents move with authority. They solve problems (care), are not defeated by small tragedies like a broken toy. Later, if that strength is used for disregard, abuse, or harshness, resentment rises even when love remains in some dilution. Resentment wounds love. Some children move away from their parents to keep their love, to escape resentment. I have known parents with dependent children who will lose or reduce the love quotients in their children through the exercise of the distortions of their larger abilities and powers exceeding those of the child. A child may misinterpret, and love is turned. Love may be lost by the parent entering into competition with a child, even with the other parent.
Love is at the full when it is joined by abandonment. The loving person finds the way to abandon selfishness for love’s objective. The benefit of the person loved becomes primary. The weakness or the strength of the loved no longer wounds the relationship even if it tests it. Good will toward the loved is important. Effort and humility go into the relationship. Communication and silence are practiced better than they were when love was absent or weak. Love can grow. Even Scripture notes occasions of much or little love. Love becomes cause for treating others better than oneself. The Christian finds all this, and much more, in the relationship of Christ to persons. Christ set aside his divine dignity for a bit more than three decades, submitting to the hands of cruelty so to provide the model of love for mankind. It ought to be the goal of every Christian to seek to be a reflection of that model of love that becomes sacrificial in some way. It serves the family well to review the instances of love events in Scripture so to be fine-tuned for life. In this the members learn how to fashion their lives as righteous lovers. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020