learning how to love.

During this quarantine, God has been teaching me the most profound yet difficult lesson of all time. How to love others. He's teaching me about a love that's different from our culture's definition of love. Our culture says that love is passive. It's a feeling that comes and goes. We show others love when we feel like it. And when they annoy or anger us, we aren't obligated to continue loving them.

But that's not what God teaches us. And that's not how God loves us.

God's love transcends all human understanding.

His love is persevering.

His love is forgiving and merciful.

His love is patient, gentle, and kind.

His love is infinite and boundless.

To know God is to know love.

We do not actually know what true love is until we experience His love.

And the love that humans give to each other is merely a flawed, broken reflection of His great love.

God has been teaching me that love is greater than a feeling. Love is action. It requires sacrifice. It's looking to the needs of others instead of being absorbed in my own. It's seeking to serve, honour, and bless others with a joyful heart– not with a grumbling or reluctant one. And Jesus shows us the ultimate expression and true definition of love when He sacrificed Himself on the cross so that we may have the chance of eternal life.

The kind of sacrificial, selfless, self-giving love that God demonstrates to us is against our very nature. It conflicts with our flesh, and that’s why it’s so difficult to do.

“For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.” Galatians 5:17

If we give in to our culture’s definition of love, we would only be loving others when we feel like it. And let’s be honest… do we always feel like putting others above ourselves? Serving others in the way that Jesus did? Loving others when we feel angry, annoyed, frustrated, or impatient with them? To bring it even further, Jesus calls us to love our enemies. And He knows full well that we won’t "feel" like loving our enemies.

If love were only a feeling, it would be really cheap and short-lived.

We would constantly be falling in and out of love, just like how Hollywood movies portray it.

But God’s definition of love proves to us how deep, valuable, and constant His love is.

In being with my family every day for the past three months, God has been teaching me what it means to love them. He does this by sending trials over to see if I can love them even when I don’t feel like it. It’s definitely been really difficult to do, and I’ve failed countless times.

But God is also merciful, patient, and gracious to me.

Loving in this way requires a whole life of dedicated practice.

And because it's not an easy thing to do, He faithfully guides and teaches me each day.

He opens my eyes to the ways in which I can better love those around me.

Through these trials, I've realized that I’m incapable of loving in this way in my own human strength.

In fact, it's impossible.

I don't have enough patience.

I don't have enough kindness, compassion, and selflessness.

And I don't have enough strength or energy to constantly put others above myself.

If I want to love others in the way that God has called me to, I need to completely rely on Him for strength.

I can only have patience, kindness, compassion, and selflessness for others through Him.

And I can only love them in this way when I love Him with all my heart first. Because God is the very source of love, only when I love Him wholeheartedly first, will the Christ-like love overflow unto those around me.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’There is no commandment greater than these." Mark 12:30-31