Opus 2023-132: The Pool of Love

I was thinking about love, stimulated by an evening with my grandchildren.

I started thinking about how much I can love them, thought about my children, then went on a tangent:  Do I love my son-in-law as much as I love my daughter?  It was not hard to come to a clear “no” and I asked myself why that was true.

I started thinking about how love is not just a current experience but it also has a history.  It is not stagnant but dynamic, thus it is like a faucet pulsing out of your heart and mind.  You can have equal amounts going out at any one time but the faucet that has been on longer will have a larger pool beneath it.  It will have irrigated and carved a much more dynamic landscape because it has had longer to work.  In time, both pools may get big enough that you can’t tell the difference but that can only develop over time.

There is also a sense in which genuine, agape love, cannot be measured like a quantitative thing.  You don’t have five scoops of love as opposed to four.  You love or you don’t.  You are either all in or you are not.

There is also a sense in which it is measured.  The love of God is beyond anything we can reach within ourselves by ourselves.

(Rom 5:5 KJV)  And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

It is possible to love because the Holy Spirit lives in us and Jesus modeled it for us.

(Rom 5:8 KJV)  But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

I am convinced that this love works itself out in practical ways.  I believe the Christian parents love their children more than pagans do.  There is a level of willingness to sacrifice for others that is there at the root.

I pray that more people will seek the love that God has to offer so they can offer it to those around them and transform the world we see falling apart.

homo unius libri

Opus 2021-245: Idle Thoughts

What gets you thinking the deep thoughts?  I drift into contemplation from many directions.  It can be while watching my grandson check out to see if gravity is still working.  It can be trying to grasp how long it has taken some starlight to get to me.  It could be that I marvel at people’s stupidity or creativity.  You can get to wander into wonder from almost anywhere.

At one end of the spectrum I contemplate infinity.  It is a concept that we cannot grasp.  If you think you understand it add one.  Double it.  Halve it.  Try to convince yourself that you are not going insane.  I sometimes wonder about the mathematician who came up with the idea.

Or about face.  At the other end of the spectrum I see how every physical unit is made up of smaller units.  I think the smallest concept we have currently is the neutrino.  At least that is what the internet tells me and if you see it on the internet it must be true.  I somehow think a smaller unit will be discovered or postulated eventually.  

We are in between those extremes.

This is what it is like to try and understand God.  When you cast your eyes to the heavens and consider that God is what made it and holds it together you move in one direction.  When you think you are getting close to a definition then multiply by one million and start over again.  It is this infinite nature of God which gives Him the capacity to make sure that my neurons keep synapsing.  It is what makes it possible for Him to keep track of each human being and what is going on in their inner being.  If men operate in DOS and women in Windows then God is an operating system that can have limitless aps open and never crash.

In the midst of that we have the words of the God,

(Rom 5:8 KJV)  But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

I hope you get bored enough to look around you and contemplate the miracle of it all.

Merry Christmas where we celebrate the birth that lead to the death, that lead to the resurrection, which offers us hope.  At one end a cradle; at the other, eternity.

homo unius libri

Opus 2015-97: On the Street: One of Those Days

Do you ever have those days when you need a word from the Lord?

Mine come with frequency.  It happens, usually in the evening when I can simply say I am tired.  The solution can be a good night’s sleep.  Today, as I wrote, was one of those days.  I was totally deflated.  I was not depressed, just void of joy.

The problem was, it was morning. 

So I left off the radio and did not connect the I-pod.  This was not a day for a sermon.  It was a day to worship as I drove.  It is hard to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit when you have a lot of distractions.

Certain songs came to mind.

   "My Desire, to be like Jesus..."

   "My Life Is in You, Lord..."

Certain scripture came to mind.

(Micah 6:8 NAS77)  He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?

(Romans 5:8 NAS77)  But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

We had a good conversation on the way to work.  I can honestly say that the traffic did not bother me.  I figured that every clown that cut in front of me just gave me more time to worship.

So I am ready to go again.  I am not feeling old and tired.  I am feeling experienced and prepared.

homo unius libri

Opus 2014-193: Monday Pulpit: The Love of a Godly Husband

The pastor was preaching from Ephesians 5 on marriage.  He was talking about the command for  husbands to love their wives.

(Ephesians 5:25 KJV)  Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

This love is agape love.  Next the pastor threw in a quote from C.S. Lewis.  He did not cite a source so I am guessing it is a paraphrase.  It went like this.

“This love is intended for the man whose wife does not return his love.”

I do have some notes from C.S. Lewis’s book, The Four Loves.  In it he said,

“This headship, then, is most fully embodied not in the husband we should all wish to be but in him whose marriage is most like a crucifixion;...”, p. 105

I think that is along the same theme.  The time for agape love is when it is the most counter intuitive.  When we want to walk away, we stand firm.  When we want to lash out, we embrace.  Keep in mind the parallel between marriage and the church.  Remember that Jesus died for us when we were the hardest to love.

(Romans 5:8 KJV)  But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

This is not the standard of our civil culture but is a foundation of the Christian life.  We are different.

Lewis, C.S.  The Four Loves.  Norwalk, Connecticut:  The Easton Press, 2002.

homo unius libri