Love Actually...

Love, a word that could mean so much in todays culture. What is love, what is lust, how do we distiguish between the two? The world has something it calls love where you can love somebody and then two months later hate them. A love that is more of a commonality where you have permission to touch me and make me feel good and when you need some, come on over. It is a strange fleeting thought. For girls I see it as this attempt to mix farytales with reality. Guys it is more of a buddy thing where you have a girl you get long with, you click with and you sleep with. A lot of times it is a mix between an attempt to be her prince and the fight to suppress a beast of selfish lust that is fed off of a never ending supply of perversion and very often pornography. As best as I can tell they guys role is to try and make the girls farytale come true and the girls role is to feed the beast of his desire. It is more about what I need then really pleasing her but to get what pleases me I entertain her fantasies as a way of payment. Then God says that with out love we can speak in the laguage of angels and be nothing. We can have faith that moves mountains and be nothing. We can sacrifice ours bodies and give away all of our stuff to the poor yet have no lasting effect. We need to have love or we can not do anything that really matters. So I ask again, what is love? How do I get some? Because if we do not find out what it is and how to live it out then our lives will be a wash and our ministries no matter how large, our companies no matter how flourishing, and our relationships no matter how numerous will all amount to nothing.
I am sitting in the cafateria with my special needs friends working with them on math and getting into the word because I did not get enough of it this morning. I asked them what love is...Eric says that love means giving bear hugs. And kisses, and sleeping together, and hanging out together, and solving mysteries together, like in scooby-doo. Anna says it is a really warm feeling that you get. Ollie says you can love chocolate and you can love your parents but when you love your parents it is different. He says you hug and kiss and hang out. Autumin and Misty say it is when you care for someone really really much.
I love these kids so much because they are so not judgemental or cynical. They call stuff like it is. If my hair is a mess they tell me. If they do not like what I am asking them to do, they tell me.
Tina another staff member says that love is caring for someone beyond circomstances or feelings.
There are so manny definitions of Love how are we going to get it right? First Cornithians 13 says that love is patient, and kid. You know the passage. The world knows the passage and thinks it is a great idea but the problem is that ideas have no power until acted upon. Gods definition of Love is selfless, completely focussed on the well being of the others. Jesus said that there is no greater love than when a man lays down his life for a friend. He told us to love like he oved us and gave himself for us. That is radically different from the way we think of love and the way that we live. I know that even with those I love I am not selfless and do not set out to serve them and lay my life down for them daily. Think of how awesome our relationships would be. Here is my thought, lets intentially start loving on our familys as practise for how we are going to love other people. Like practise for an awesome marriage. Lets love on our families! Lets redefine love to the point that even my special needs buddies know that love is a selfless action of laying down your life for another. A choice for compassion beyond what is becnificial selfishly.