what is love?
What is love?... [don’t hurt me, no more…]
I can't read the title of this post without singing this. All thoughts aside, I truly think we struggle with this question more than ever today. I know I do.
Maybe it's because we have so many lenses to peer through to tell us what what “true love” is.
We have Beauty and the Beast and The Bachelor and This is Us and The Great Gatsby and anything Nicholas Sparks wrote. We also have Facebook articles galore to read for answers and church sermons.
We see all over TV other people’s life and love stories, whether fake or real, and somewhere in our brains or souls we believe it’s how it’s supposed to be, all the while questioning still what it should be. How confusing and challenging.
And we compare and judge our own lives to the lives of others in a whole new way. It’s not just my story or marriage compared to my best friend Jen across the street anymore. It’s my story compared to Eric and Jessie and Sean and Catherine Lowe and the 2,000 "friends" I have on Facebook.
There is so much inhabiting our brain that tells us working 9-5, then going to the gym, coming home to cook rice and chicken and going to sleep at 10pm while turning out the lights with a simple peck and “goodnight, love you” isn’t good enough.
So a question, I shamefully admit I ask myself… Is it enough? Is this love? If not, what is?
Is it enough compared to the stories plastered to my plasma screen? To my TV that plays 3 hours a day? To my laptop screen that is on 8 hours a day during my job? Or to my phone and Instagram feed that I check 1-3 times day? When does the input stop that I- and my surroundings-should be more than what we are?
This input sometimes tell us that our lives we live and breath each waking day aren’t enough or special or seen or important or extraordinary. We search and search for answers to the questions, "what is love?" and "what is life all about?", and far too often we find the rabbit-hole answers on TV and social media.
I believe that’s why more than ever I must, not want or need, but must turn to a different source of truth.
A voice and a reason that’s far more real than anything that could ever be shown on a TV screen or monitor.
We must turn to the voice that spoke light into darkness. The voice that created us in our mother’s wombs. The words of the Son who saved us from our sin and the Father who let Him. The Spirit that comforts and empowers us. The voice that tells us we are fearfully and wonderfully made, cherished, seen and known. The voice that tells us we are special. The voice that reassures us that our stories of love or how we live our days matters. Every single, breathing moment we experience has a purpose and a plan and point-the voice that reminds us of that is the voice we need to turn on.
I believe we must tune into that voice way more often than we do, because it has a lot more valuable wisdom to share than what E! or Instagram can offer.
I don’t have all the answers, especially to tell you what "true love" looks like, but I am confident in saying that God does have the answers. All the answers. So let’s fix our eyes on Him. I want to say on Him alone, but I know that's going to be real tough.
Because to be in this world , but not of it, means we WILL see it. We will take bits and pieces of it in. We have to be in the world and as a result we will see it, but we don’t have to be of it.
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world (James 1:27).
"My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth (John 17:15-17).
To fix our eyes means we immerse in the word and let it move us to a change in thought and, consequentially, in action. We plant our feet on steady rock and not on shifting sand. We pray. We believe. We ask and we receive. We respond. And we know in faith that one day, we won’t have to fight against the world anymore, because in Him, the beginning and end, we have already won the promise of conquering. We have to fix our eyes to know and believe that our worth lies in truth, not in culture. I speak this as someone who suffers from the battle of seeing the world around me everyday and has my fair share of battle scars and open wounds.
I am daily fighting to believe that I'm a cherished daughter of the Most High with a plan and a purpose, not whoever everyone else might view me as or who I view myself after staring at "more interesting" lives on Snapchat.
The truest way to operate in the world but not of it is to look toward and fix our eyes on God, letting Him renew our minds and hearts; letting Him shape us even when it's hard.
How, today, can you make adjustments to be in the world, but not of it? How can you let God show you what true love is (or the answer to a question you're currently wrestling with) as opposed to letting the world tell you?
"He will keep in perfect peace all those who trust in him, whose thoughts turn often to the Lord!"
-Isaiah 26:3
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off every encumbrance and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with endurance the race set out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.…"
-Hebrews 12:1-3
"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
-2 Corinthians 4:18