Living Love

A small child stands in front of his mom. She looks down at him as he stretches his arms as wide as he can. "I love you THIS much," he says. She smiles because she knows he's telling the truth.

We all did that when we were little. We tried to show our moms and dads, brothers and sisters how much we loved them. And well, the only way we knew to do that was to stretch our arms out wide and say, "THIS much" with a giant grin on our faces.

How many of us still do that? How many of us still try to show those around us how much we really love them? I know I don't, at least not as often as I could. Why don't we?

For me personally, there are several reasons. First of all, it's hard. Showing love is showing emotion, and that's never easy to do. It's not always easy to see how love is received, and not knowing how it's received makes it hard to give. Secondly, I don't always want to. I'd rather receive love than give it. I'd rather sit back and take it easy. Third, sometimes, it just doesn't seem like people deserve it.

However, God doesn't care about all those excuses. (Yes, I called them excuses, because that's what they are. They're not reasons.) It was hard for Him to show us His love; He had to die. He didn't want to die. We didn't deserve for Him to die for us. He just did it. So we should too.

Here's a few lessons we can learn about love that might help.

1. We have to make a decision to love someone else. If we don't make the decision to love them, we don't have anything to show.
2. Love is active. People can't see words. People can see actions. If our actions don't match our words we're not showing anybody anything. Our actions will show people what we mean when we say, "I love you THIS much!"
3. Love is deliberate. This combines the first two points. We can't be deliberate about something if you haven't made a decision on what to be deliberate about, and if we're deliberate about something, we do it on purpose. Deliberate love makes a conscious effort to put love into action. It thinks about what it is doing. If an action doesn't match the decision to love another, deliberate love will change what it is doing.
4. Love is living. Anything living should be growing. The more effort you put into loving someone else, the more you're going to love them. You're going to benefit from watching them receive your love, and it's going to help you show them more love.

Living love takes time and practice. We can't expect to get it right as soon as we start trying. But we can start trying. We can make a decision to love those around us unconditionally, deliberately and actively. No matter how hard it is.

I want to be like that little child, always letting people see how much I love them. I may not stand up, looking up into their eyes to see their reaction and stretch my arms as far as I can. I may not always see their reaction right away like the child sees his mother smile and scoop him up into her arms in a giant hug.

But I want my actions to say, "I love you THIS much."