The Art of Loving

The Art of Loving

1 John 4:7-12

            If ever there was a life lived in love it was the life of Mother Teresa.  She gave herself in loving service to those who needed love regardless of their physical condition, their social condition, their financial condition, or their spiritual condition.  While she did write about love, and talk about love, she also lived love, leaving us an example of how to live. 

            John says God loves us.  That’s a given.  God made each of us, and God loves each of us.  When we accept the gift of God’s grace, God’s love is poured into our lives, filling us to overflowing, until that love becomes a never-emptying fountain, spilling out onto everyone we meet. 

            “Beloved,” John says, “let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.”  The only way we can demonstrate that we love God, is to love God’s children as God loves them.  How do we do that?  Our love can—must—be hands-on love, love in action.  We are Christ’s hands and feet, and we provide loving service to our brothers and sisters in Christ’s name.

            This was the essence of Mother Teresa’s life.  She loved—not out of any concern for herself, but because God’s love was such a strong force within her that she had no choice but to love.  Mother Teresa said, “It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing.  It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving.”  She knew the force behind the action, and the force behind the giving must be love in order to count for anything.

            God blesses us with so many good things that we overlook many.  Food, clothing, friends, family—all these and more are poured out on us so freely that we forget to thank God for them.  Our life routine becomes so full of blessings that we don’t stop to remember where they come from.  The common, ordinary things that happen to us each day give us opportunities for thanking God.

            From the time I began preparing to teach I was told that the surest way to understand a concept was to teach it.  If I could pass knowledge on to someone else, I had learned it.  The same goes for loving.  The only way we can repay God’s love for us is to pass it on.  Our love doesn’t have to be demonstrated in some large, overwhelming action.  Mother Teresa again: “Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.”

            God smiles on us constantly.  Sometimes those smiles come in good times, as God shares with us the joyful moments of our lives.  Sometimes those smiles come when we have made mistakes, and God smiles at us as a parent smiles at a child who has fallen short of the mark.  Sometimes those smiles come when our hearts are so full of grief and sorrow that we believe nobody loves us—but God does.  God wants us to pass that love—those smiles—on to others who need them as much—if not more than we do.

            One more quote from Mother Teresa: “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”  True, true, true.  So often we allow our judgmental nature to get in the way of our loving.  How can we love people if we find fault with them?  Judging others is the opposite of loving them.  If God judged us as severely and as frequently as we judge God’s children, we’d be in serious trouble.  Instead, God loves us, and loves us, and loves us—with no end to that love.

            Larry Bosh says, “It is always the right time to realize that God loves you.”  And it is always the right time to pass that love on.