The Desire of Love is to Give

"The desire of love is to give.  The desire of lust is to take."

The topic of love has been on my heart a lot lately.  It has just been resting there, making my heart a little heavier and my mind a little busier as the thoughts run through my head.  Usually when I write a post I know where it's going - how I'm going to start, what I want to say, the point I want to make at the end - but tonight I'm still unsure about what I want to say.  I thought I would just start writing and let the Holy Spirit take over if He so desires.  Maybe letting some of these thoughts out will make my heart less restless...

What is love?  Where do you find it?  How do you know when you've found it?  The world pummels us with images of love's perversion - lust - trying to pass it off as genuine love.  And the world can be rather convincing sometimes.  If you don't dig too deep, you see happiness.  What the world shows us is that lust, which they call love (even though it isn't), gives us the greatest freedom.  We can do what we want, when we want, how we want, to whom we want.  

I mean, this is what the greatest love stories are made of, right?  Boy meets girl at a bar.  Girl goes home with boy and hooks up.  They experience years happiness....well, hours of happiness.  But those few hours are just fine, because as the world sees it, all any of us are seeking is happiness in the very moment we are in.  Although it was temporary, it was worth it.  Live in the moment.  No regrets.  Right?  But what the world doesn't give you is a backstage pass...the only way you get to see what happens behind the scenes is if you live it yourself...experience the pain that comes with believing a lie.  Experience the emptiness, shame, loneliness, embarrassment, guilt that comes with using another to satisfy your immediate physical desires.  What the world passes off as the greatest freedom actually leaves us in chains.  We become slaves to the emotional poverty of our hearts, longing for the emptiness to be filled.

But this emptiness can never be filled by taking from another.  It can only be filled by fully giving of ourselves.  It is only by making the decision to empty our hearts for someone else that we can receive and be filled by what someone is freely offering us...what God is freely offering us.  This is love.

Love is a decision.  It is greater than the butterflies in your stomach, than the leaping of your heart when that person walks into the room.  True love is not a knee-jerk reaction to the way you have been treated or to what you are feeling.  It persists when the "warm and fuzzies" are gone, in environments that are hostile toward true love.  In all environments, in spite of all feelings, true love actively seeks the well-being of another.  True love gives of itself, even to the point of self-detriment, if it means that another may experience life more meaningfully.  To give everything that you could possibly give without expecting anything in return.

This is how our Savior loved us - it is perfect and beautiful.

Through writing and prayer, I'm beginning to get in touch with why love, true love, has been so intensely on my heart lately.  I want to love another that way.  I want my heart to be captured by true love, to give of myself, empty myself fully and completely so that another may experience the intensity of unconditional love.  As Christ sacrificed Himself so that we might have life and have it more abundantly, we too are called to sacrifice.  We give completely of our hearts, sacrifice ourselves, for our family, our friends, our spouse, our children, so that they might experience true life.

We bring others to Christ and encourage others along the narrow way through this self-sacrifice, through this love.  This decision to truly love is one that must be made each day, some days minute by minute.  But God continues to reveal to me that this is one of the deepest desires of my heart...I pray that I may love as He has called me where ever He leads me.

In His Love,

Lindsey