Love is the Answer

I'm not very organised when it comes to ensuring the correct CDs are in the correct cases in the car. 

 

Normally I would tut-tut at myself as, in most respects, I am a very organised person.  However, the CDs-in-the-car thing is a result of changing CDs whilst driving and therefore not having time to fuss about which cases they go into.  Road-safety will always come first.

 

A few days ago, this CD Bingo resulted in the rediscovery of a CD I forgot I owned: Jack Johnson's album 'In Between Dreams'.

 

The words of one song really stuck in my mind and I have been thinking about them ever since:

"Love is the answer,

At least for most of the questions in my heart."

 

We all have questions.  Questions about our lives and our purpose and our pasts and our futures.  Questions about our relationships with family and friends and people who have hurt us.  Questions about God and His existence and His purpose and His kindness.

 

Is love really the answer?

 

How can it satisfy and answer all of those questions?

 

To understand how love can really be the answer, we need to redefine our understanding of 'Love'.  Romantic, soppy, can't-live-without-you love is not the answer to all of our questions or problems (sometimes it just creates more questions and problems).  But true love, do-anything-for-your-good love is the answer.

 

Joshua Harris writes,

"The world takes us to a silver screen on which flickering images of passion and romance play, and as we watch, the world says, 'This is love.'  God takes us to the foot of a tree on which a naked and bloodied man hangs and says, 'This is love.'

 

Love is not a fuzzy feeling, it is a verb.  An action, stimulated by a desire to serve and bless and do good for another person, even at the expense of ourselves.  True love cares more for another person than it does for itself and is willing to risk discomfort and vulnerability - even rejection - for the good of another.

I love this passage about love.  I think it is one of the most beautiful in the whole Bible:

"Mostly what God does is love you.  Keep company with him and learn a life of love.  Observe how Christ loved us.  His love was not cautious but extravagant.  He didn't love in order to get anything from us but to give everything of himself to us.  Love like that."

[Ephesians 5:1-2 MSG]

 

I have just come across this beautiful blog about love and read this quote about love being the answer - http://theloveyourselfchallenge.tumblr.com:

"Love is the answer.  It always has been.  I'm not talking about a romantic kind of love, I am talking about a love that breaks through boundaries and meets people where they are.  A love that does not box people in but allows them to be who they are in each and every moment regardless of what they have done in the past or what they will do in the future.  A love that loves with no strings attached refusing to give up on those who need hope the most [...] This Love has been given to all of us through Jesus and when we allow this love to transform us we will then have the love it takes to change the world."

 

[Rae Smith]

 

Love is the answer.