Life Looks Like Love

I would like to propose a concept: life, looks a whole lot like love. Every day, we open ourselves up to new experiences, new feelings, heart break, and hope restored, and we fall madly, truly, deeply in love with it along the way.

On this day of love, I'd like to look at love in all its forms, which is so clearly defined in scripture:

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 are probably some of the most well known verses in the Bible right next to John 3:16, but for good reason! So often, in our world that is strongly composed of washed out gray spaces, instead of bold, defining colours, love gets watered down. It gets watered down, waded up, and thrown away as a filler for every emotion or thought we aren't able to place. But here's the thing about

1 Corinthians 13 - "the love chapter", when it says "love", what it means is agape.

Written in Greek, there are eight different types of love:

• Philia - the affectionate love of friendship

• Pragma - enduring love that matures

• Storge - familial love between parent and child, or childhood friends

• Eros - personal, physical, romantic love

• Ludus - the infant love of flirtation and new beginnings

• Mania - obsessive love from infatuation

• Philautia - self love

• Agape - selfless love

It's that last one that I really want you to grab on to: agape. This is the highest form of love, it is a soul binding, lay-down-your-life kind of love, it is stronger than the grave, and the purest kind of demanding -it is the kind of love that drove Jesus to the cross, and it is the same love that brought us back. To agape, is to experience something more pure than adoration, to agape is to meet you exactly where you are at and know that you are forever safe and satisfied in the arms of the Father.

Agape, is the word used in the place of "love", in the Greek translation of 1 Corinthians 13. Once you know this, that scripture is able to take on a whole new meaning:

"Christ is patient, He is kind. He does not envy, He does not boast, He is not proud. Jesus does not dishonor others, Jesus is not self-seeking, Jesus is not easily angered, He keeps no record of wrongs. Christ does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. God always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres..."

Love is not some undefinable abstract concept that we are meant to aimlessly pursue for the rest of eternity: God is love! Love is definable, it is findable, it is something you can experience down in the very depths of your soul, and it is something you can pursue in all of its forms!

I have had the privilege of being loved in this lifetime in a multitude of ways: I have seen the love of my parents, whose grace, wisdom, and care has given me a greater glimpse of Heaven, I have seen the love of a sibling whose jovial attitude and constant companionship adds brightness to the world, and I have seen the love of friends whose laughter and fellowship helped me grow into this world. Every one of these loves is pure in their own ways, and has pointed me closer to the Lord, but not one of these loves can match the agape love that Christ has shown me.

Life looks a lot like love, because it is scary in the most adrenaline rushing, heart racing kind of way. Like dangling from the top of a rollercoaster that you know is about to drop. We face doubts, and we must confront our insecurities to grow, and the Devil will try and wreck you every. single. step. of. the. way.

But it is worth it. Life looks a lot like love, because God, the creator of agape, is beside you through it all.

Now that you understand what love is, let me tell you what I've learned about love in my short time here on this earth: it demands honesty. Love requires communication and transparency in every way, from how you feel about yourself and your situations, to working through things with your partner and those you encounter in day to day life. So embrace it! God already knows our every thought, action, and feeling and He stands by our side through it all - so why not give it all to Him anyways?

Get real about your thoughts and where they stem from and confront your insecurities that hold you back, get honest about your hopes for the future because you will never reach them if you aren't first willing to admit that they're there, get excited and stop waiting for the other shoe to drop! Life and love were not meant to be lived on the sideline, so letting the Devil convince you to never even try won't get you anywhere! Then, get a plan. Better yet, get really close to God who already has a plan! A perfect one, that is going to give you a hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11).

If life and love go hand in hand, then honesty and growth should too. As someone who can speak from a frightening amount of personal experience in terms of anxiety and thinking something to death, let me plead with you to stop it, and instead: fall.

Over and over again the Bible reminds us that we have already experienced the greatest love story of all time: Romeo & Juliet have nothing on You & Jesus.

1 John 3:16 "By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers."

Isaiah 53:5 "But he was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His stripes we are healed."

1 John 4:10 "In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

1 John 4:8 "Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love."

So, why not join in on that love affair? Because it's there that we begin to find our passions, it is at the foot of the cross, on the precipice of love, that we find our purpose.

As we begin a new year of blog posts, I pose to you a new challenge: fall horribly, madly in love in a utterly ridiculous fashion. Become undignified for the sake of agape, and know that you are so fiercely loved in return...

Happy Blog Birthday & Valentine's Day!

-Emma

"Be fearless in pursuit of what sets your soul on fire."