Love: More Than An Emotion

To end my mini-series on faith, hope, and love, I am trying to tackle arguably one of the biggest subjects on the face of this planet. People could write books upon books of love and there would still be more to say on the subject. So here, I am going to write just a short thought what I have been learning on the subject of love. So here I will start with a story:

The other day while I was driving I caught myself praying the prayer “Lord, help me to love you more.” I finished this prayer, and I kind of startled myself. “Get God to help me love him more?” I thought to myself. “This is absolutely a ridiculous statement.”

To give a little context on why I think this is a ridiculous statement, let me tell you about something God has been teaching me over the last year. I have recently been learning how love in not an uncontrollable emotion, but rather a choice that we make daily. I can choose to love people by spending time with them and doing things for them even when I don’t want to. Love is far more than gushy feelings.

We like to loosely toss around the word love these days. “I love that movie” or “I loved that book” are common uses of the word love. Do you really love that movie, or did you just enjoy it? I believe there is a difference between love and enjoyment.

Another way we misuse the word love is in describing our passions. “I love hockey” or “I love music” are again common statements that people use. These are not things we love, rather things we are passionate about and again, we feel enjoyment while experiencing.

Love is not solely about enjoyment.

Now I know that I don’t know everything there is to know about love, but I believe that there has to be self sacrifice involved in love. If you really love someone, there will have to be times in your life when you put their needs ahead of your own. I would say this is the case more often than not.

To get back to my prayer, I guess I haven’t always been enjoying God lately (as crazy as that sounds). There have been times over this last year (and throughout my life) where I have felt very dry in my spiritual life. But luckily, me not "enjoying" God doesn't mean that God doesn't love me. It is this love that I receive from God that should make me want to love God back, but that is not always the case. Amidst my busy life, I feel like I have too often given God a backseat in my life.

In that I was reminded about something my good friend Joey Traa once told me. I don’t remember his exact words but it was something along the lines of “God deserves to be first in our lives. When we get busy, often God is the first to go. Then we wonder why everything falls apart. Rather, God needs to be the one thing that we hold onto while everything around us is falling apart.”

So yes, maybe there are times where I don't "enjoy" God. Maybe I’m not loving God enough. But more than likely this stems from my own selfish, busy lifestyle that I live. I have slowly been squeezing God out of my life and filling that space with school, friends, music, sports, etc. Too often I put my selfish, worldly desires ahead of God. It is a work in progress for me to get my priorities straight. Loving God requires a sacrifice. It is not about fulfilling our worldly desires first, and then seeing where we can serve Got. Rather, our commitment to God needs to come before everything else.

While writing these three blog posts on faith, hope, and love, one verse has always been on my mind, so that is the verse I will leave you with. That verse is Luke 9:23, which says "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."