Where Is the Love?

Where is the love? It's there.

The question posed is absurd- if God took heaven off the table, would we still love Him? And what might that love look like? Absurd because God promises heaven. But the question begs because it makes me wonder, do we just do the paces for the eternal reward?

What is love? The tough part about defining love is that, in English, the word love covers a lot of ground. But let's take this to a level of the love a man and woman have for each other, for the sake of analogy to get a grasp on the subject.

Some say that love is not something you can control, that it's this weird spritual, emotional and physical magnetic cosmic fate. That's just stupid, although it makes for some watchable Hollywood fare. Some say love is an emotion that you either have or you don't. Some say they fell madly in love. Some say they fell out of love. Again, all indicating there's no choice in the matter.

I say love is proven by action, and that raw emotion without the mature choices made to act upon it is without worth. I say love is not the blushing bride who is worried about her hair and wedding dress, but the 70-year-old woman cleaning up her paralyzed husband of fifty years. I say love is not the starry-eyed young man trying to buy a woman a drink at a bar, but the husband who speaks highly of his wife consistently in public and in private. The wife who signs her husband up for art school. The husband who cheers on his wife as she pursues her masters degree.

Do we work harder at a job that we get paid more for, or one that we love?

Love is the actions of someone who is genuinely interested in the personal growth of the one he loves, even at the cost of potentially high personal sacrifice, and without the condition of return.

That's lofty. But that's how God loves us.

What if we loved God like that? What would that look like? That we would be interested in the growth of God's kingdom simply because we love him? Personal sacrifice? Unconditional? How much would it change our habits, our attitudes, our direction in life?

Egads.

How much greater can the motivation of love be over reward?