An overplayed emotion

At a group that I go to weekly, we have been looking at love recently. Love is a word that has so many meanings depending upon how we feel, in what way we are considering it and our own experiences.

We call it love when we see someone across a room and feel attracted to them, we call it love when we must have that new shiny car or when we see that must have life accessory - "I would just love to have ....". We call it love when we look at a baby and adore it,, like I do when I look at my 12 week old grand daughter.

Problem is all of these have some part of the whole but only a part, what is real love? Is it a desire to own, possess, take part in, consume or is it a choice to share, to care, to think the best of, to support, to encourage, to discipline and to be prepared to give up things for?

Its not love that is out of focus so much as what we think of love and what we see of it in the popular press and media. Perhaps the comment that there is nothing greater than the love that is prepared to give up life itself for those loved, holds a truth after all? A partnership not simply based on my needs but shared needs and desires and follows a model of being able to give up or sacrifice my own desires, wants, needs at times for those of the one I love.

Love, like faith demands action, they are both action words, an old song I recall has the line "love is not a feeling its an act of your will" - choosing to love and to act upon it is possibly the greatest thing any of us will do, loving our partner, our children and loving our Saviour, Jesus. Definitely a way of life ...