Love and its concept

Love is a word with a very broad and extensive definition. It may be because of this reason that there are many of us who fail to understand its very concept. Or to some of us, because of experiences that are not so desirable, love may have eventually turned out to be just a concept.

Although I don’t claim to be an expert on this this subject, I will try to attempt to discuss this in a manner I so understand and am familiar with.

William Shakespeare, in one of his most famous sonnet wrote about love in so elegant a manner that I cannot help but write a part of it. He wrote that “love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove. Oh no, it is an ever fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken.” He described love as a “commitment” or so this is how I understand it. And because it is a commitment, it is not altered but instead it is a “fixed mark” that is never shaken. You may say that it sounds so ideal. Yes it is. But shouldn’t it be ideal? Isn’t it right that we should have an ideal, or a standard when we talk about important things such as love? And when ideals are discussed, what could be the best standard of love?

Before I discuss “standards”, it is better to define our terms or definitions first. C.S. Lewis, in his book “The Four Loves” divided love into four categories based on the four Greek words for love, Storge, Philia, Eros, and Agape. Storge is defined as Affection. It is the type of love for those whom we are bound to by natural chance, such as our family. Philia is that of a strong bond between two people who share the same interest. Friendship may fit in this category. I would define Eros as Romantic love, that desire we feel for the opposite sex. It is the sense of being “in love.” And the last one, Agape, is regarded by Lewis as the greatest among the four. It is an unconditional love which is not dependent on any lovable qualities that the object of love possesses. To put it simply, it is “love undeserved.”

If Agape love is the greatest among the four, where could we find this type of love? Where is its source? Just to make a point, let me state that in finding the source of Agape love, I am not saying that the other types of love is not important. But if Agape love is, as Lewis put it, the greatest among the four, then it may be best to learn of this love first in order to understand the others as well.

The term Agape has been used by the early Christians to refer to the self-sacrificing love of God for humanity.

1 Corinthians Chapter 13 describes to us what love is. It also describes to us what love is not. The apostle Paul said that if we do not have love, we are nothing. If this is so, could we interpret that the whole totality of humanity is its ability to love? That without this ability, we are “nothing” as the apostle Paul said? Should it be our highest goal then?

When asked about what the greatest commandment is, Jesus replied “'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

I may say, that to love is the greatest act there is for us to follow. And the primary object of that love is God. We should love God above all else, and in every totality of our being, that is our heart, soul and mind.

The next question to ask then is “how can we love in this manner?” Our only option is to turn to the source of love itself, or to make it better, to turn to the source of love Himself. A verse in 1 John 4 tells us that love comes from God. And so we are told to love one another. This is how it was written for us:

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

I recall a quote from author and apologist Ravi Zacharias when he told about the story of his brother marrying someone whom he never personally met before. Ravi’s brother told him “love is as much a question of the will as it is of the emotion, and if you will to love someone, you can.” I have always maintained that love is a commitment, not just an emotion. If love is more a question of the emotion, and that no commitment is involved, what happens then when one day the husband will wake up and “feel” he doesn’t love his wife? Because if it is not a commitment, why is it then that a groom and bride say their vows to each other? Is this part of the wedding ceremony only a farce then? I hope not!

In the apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans, he said that “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” God himself commited to love us even when we don’t deserve such. Even when we were still uncapable of loving Him back. While we were still sinners.

God himself commands us to love Him. It is no wonder why we desire so much to love and to be loved in return. Yet while we seek for love in all directions, the problem is that we seek love in the wrong places. We should learn to seek God so that the void in us may be filled. God is the source of love. He is first and foremost the source of true love. He defined best what true love is, and what love is not. If to love is the greatest act, then the primary object of that love should be the primary source of love Himself, and that is God. Only then, when we learn to truly love God, can we truly love others. Yes, it is ideal, and that is how God intended it to be.

I am praying for someone.

I am torn between revealing my intentions right away and developing our friendship. You see, I have no problem with revealing what my feelings are. I have always been vocal and candid with how I feel and I believe I am eloquent enough to expound emotions in words. I always thought that clear communications, which I believe involves sincerity, is the key towards gaining trust. So, I think that for friendship to evolve, and trust to be gained, intentions should be revealed. Yet at the same time, I fear that she would shun me should I expose my intentions. Or that we both would not know how to react and move on in different directions. But for friendship to develop, the virtue of patience must be at play. Friendship can never be rushed, nor can it run roughshod through course of time. It should take its time in season, like a seed unable to do anything but just wait for its time to bloom.

I admit impatience, but I also desire to pursue someone at the cost of waiting. I hope and pray that she enjoys my gift of friendship also. But more than that, it is my prayer that that friendship will turn out to be something even more beautiful, with the help of God. After all, wine doesn’t ferment overnight.

God, If only the future is like a distance away that could be viewed in a spyglass, and you would allow us to glance for even just a small amount of time. What are your plans?

We look forward to the coming of another year. We make resolutions and promises that we hope to keep. I just wonder sometimes. What difference does it make to have a resolution for the coming year? What I mean to ask is why do we have to wait for another year to change whatever things we have to change in our lives? Why wait if it is necessary? Or is one year a good period to change? Perhaps because another number is added to a year, which makes it much easier to remember. Should we not we change whenever necessity demands for it? But then again, we don’t make a self analysis that often. So it must be that one in three hundred sixty five days is good to set aside for self analysis.

I myself don’t make that much personal analysis in my life. Not that I don’t have to. I think I do. And when I think of the things I necessary have to change, there is much to be done. But of course, it is much easier said than done. It is always my principle that in order to change something, another thing must take its place. It will be difficult to change something we have been habitually doing if we just refuse to do it. Something different but of greater value must be done, and it must become a habit to replace an old habit. And it is something we must do continually.

I think what I do need to change is the way I interact with people. I noticed that I have not been too concerned about other people as I think I should. In fact, I sometimes have an “I couldn’t care less” attitude. Sounds snotty? Yes sometimes, I admit. But what I thought was that for as long as I am not harming anyone, it isn’t important that I have to be involved with their lives. On my own, I have a lot of concerns, so why do I have to bother with other concerns? Even with friends, I have a limited circle, which makes it more convenient to “manage”. Yet even with a limited circle, I have not spent much time with them either. Not as much I think I should have. This makes me admire people who keep a lot of friends, and acquaintances, and manage to make time and effort to know how each and everyone of their friends are doing. It takes too much effort to do that, and it will drain one physically and emotionally. But to some, rather than being drained, it seems as if it is their secret on what keeps them going and moving on.

The next question for me is how would I do it? Next step after analysis: action plan.

“Faithful to the end, Focus on the Lord.” That was the title of the message this morning by the pastor, Peter Tan Chi at CCF, the church I’m attending at. As much as I don’t want to be technical and go into the details of the message, I must write the four things he mentioned on how we can remain faithful to the end:
Don’t focus on the past
Don’t tolerate small compromises
Do practice spiritual disciplines
Do develop eternal perspective.

Within the length of it, there was one sentence that became very significant to me. He said “Christians should not reach a plateau.” or something similar to that effect. He mentioned the principle of “skiing”, which I think a lot of us would understand but too few of us would be able to relate to. Funny how he said it, but true, that in skiing, there is only one thing to do, and that is to go down. In a similar manner, if we do nothing, we fall down.

Idleness. That is perhaps one of the cause why a lot of Christians eventually do not finish well in the race. I remember my grandfather. He is already in his eighties but he is still active in his work. And I think that when the day comes that he ceases being active, that is the time he ceases. I noticed that when people become inactive, they would begin feeling “useless” and would slowly feel the pangs of depression. That was how I felt when I had no work for months, that almost took a year. But that is another story.

Peter was of course talking of a spiritual downhill and not of physical activity. “Christians should not reach a plateau.” I believe when we reach a plateau, that is almost similar to a flat line, a medical term often used when the heart stops to beat and shows no electrical activity. To prevent going on a flat line, we must be attuned to God. There are five “activities” he suggested. And that is Bible reading, prayer, meditation, worship and fellowship. Activities that should not be missed. Activities that should become natural, just like breathing, just like eating. Activities that when we miss, makes us weak.

I just came from a retreat a week ago. I was a facilitator in that retreat. What does a facilitator do? To put it simply, we “facilitate” discussions after a message is given. There are almost eight hundred participants in the retreat, and we try to discuss the message in a small group of five to eight people, so as to make sure that participants understand the message, hopefully be able to answer questions left unanswered, and help each one realize how we should respond to the message. I went there with eagerness, with the idea to serve. And the passion still remain. But how do I remain faithful to the end? How would I prevent myself going in a plateau? Sometimes, I fear that there would come a time when I would run out of energy just like an engine would run out of gasoline. I could only refer to the assurance of God, in Isaiah 40:28-31:

Do you not know? Have you not heard?
The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth
does not become weary or tired
His understanding is inscrutable.
He gives strength to the weary,
and to him who lacks might He increases power.
Though youths grow weary and tired,
and vigorous young men stumble badly,
Yet those who wait for the LORD
will gain new strength;
They will mount up with wings like eagles,
They will run and not get tired,
They will walk and not become weary.

There have been many instances in my life when I simply cannot understand what was going on. And when we those instances happen, my automatic response was to ask the question “why?”

If things are not favorable to me, I would ask “why is this so?” I in effect say that I don’t deserve what is happening to me. When I ask “why me?”, I unconsciously say “it should have happened to anybody except me.”

The default reaction is to ask for an explanation. It’s as if God owes it to us to explain the things that are happening. I realize, for the sake of argument, that if I do get an explanation, where then do trust take place?

In short, if things are not happening the way I want it to happen, these are the factors I realize why I get disappointed. One is because of expectations. I expect things to happen the way I have imagined them to become, or the way I planned them. Second is because of limited understanding. Because it is difficult to accept the things that are happening to me, the next consolation is to rationalize. But in order to rationalize, I have to understand the reason of things. Is it necessary that pain, failure or suffering always involve purpose? It seems fallacy to equate them together. Third is because of self centeredness. The idea that everything else revolves around me makes everything else seem insignificant compared to myself.

In some instances I would be stoic and desensitized. I would act nonchalantly and show an appearance that I ignore suffering. Yet I hurt inside. There are some instances that I would go on with a clenched fist and head held up high, challenge life and say “bring it on!” But that would be a draining activity, and most definitely I would end up defeated.

The only thing left for me to do is to turn to God. I have no other course but to accept the fact that things are not within my power, neither within my control nor within my knowledge. If there is one thing that I know, it is that I know nothing at all. My ignorance brings me shame. It is a humbling realization, but it’s a realization I have to accept.

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” – Proverbs 9:10