October 21, 2010
Love
When my children were very young I felt that part of my mothering responsibility included teaching them to love their daddy. Teaching them to say ‘daddy’, then throughout the day talking to them about their daddy’s character and helping them get excited about daddy coming home from work. As believers we teach our children to know the Lord, but I suspect that we work harder teaching them to love their earthly father than we do to love their Heavenly Father. “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me…” (Matt 10:37 NIV)
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Gail;
-----It is important to recognize the distinction between love and affection. It is difficult to have affection for those who have hurt or destroyed us and for those who are trying to do so. Yet we are commanded to love even our enemies. And it is interesting to notice that when we do actually generate love for an enemy, even some amount of affection begins to follow. Love and affection are linked, although they are not synonymous. We have a lot of affection for our spice (the plural of mouse is mice, isn’t it?) and children and parents and siblings and friends, and often it is emotionally felt more than is our affection for God and Jesus and His church. But does it effect our thinking and beliefs and actions more? Love is first a commitment to care and concern.
-----Affections can be prioritized, but following those priorities can lead to real problems. They involve emotions, and emotions are not smart, rather, they are just reactive to the combination of familiarity and comfort. Prioritizing care and concern, on the other hand, leads to solutions because they involve reality and situations. Familiarity is a subjective state of inner being, whereas reality is an objective state which exists independently of anyone’s familiarity or knowledge. It simply is what it is and is discovered instead of constructed. Affection is comfort attracted by inner familiarity, whereas love is care and concern attracted by an independent situation. Reality itself prioritizes situations, and discovering its prioritization prioritizes our love.
-----Our spice, our children, our parents and siblings and friends all have both positive and negative issues begging for our care and concern. But so does Christ. It may seem selfish of us to think the following, but it is true that His biggest care and concern for each one of us is each one’s own salvation. That love of His is the calling card to the new life, and soon to the eternal life of completed healing. But once we are through this narrow portal, the reality of His care and concern for us is our care and concern for Him. For He too has situations needing it. And that we make His need the first of our priorities is just a reality with which we must align in order to avoid being unreal.
-----And this is love in its basic beauty, that His care and concern for us is for our care and concern for Him. If I were the only creature of existence, then priorities would be simple. But the fact that I am not means He has cares and concerns for others to whom mine also must extend, since mine are for His. Thus He is properly prioritized as the first of my cares, and behold, I find my cares also directed towards everyone whom I cared for anyway, but now being able to misalign myself with any situations which they refuse to align with His truths, and yet, still be loving them.
-----I think real love is the coolest thing going. And as the comforting presence of familiar others generates affections within me, so also does the comforting practice of this familiar process generate affections for Him within me.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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