There is this thing. I haven’t really noticed it as much as I do now, but I think I’ve always recognized it. I hear it in music. I see it in a flower or a cloudy vista just as the sun rises. I feel it in a heart-felt prayer, or the humble and reluctant reproof from one who cares to one who has gone astray. I see it in a mother who stands in the rain for hours to get food for her starving children. I see it in a CEO who misses a business meeting to see his daughter graduate kindergarten. I see it in a town that stops everything to dig a child out of a well. I also see it in my sons when they see me for the first time in three days – or my daughter when I get the right gift for her birthday. I saw it in Boston, Dallas, California and Oregon. I see it in videos from Chicago or Nepal – Norway or Africa. I feel it when I admit I’m wrong; when I stop thinking or talking to really listen; or when I let my problems sit on a shelf long enough to help sort a friend’s. But as often as I’m noticing it now, the world needs more of this thing.
John chapter three verse fifteen has got to be the most widely known scripture among Christians. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life.” This thing is love. It’s not the same love I feel for cake, or the same “love” strangers feel on a dark, noisy club dance floor at 2 AM. This love is pure, unadulterated, unadorned, unpretentious – love. It’s everywhere. It’s in everything. It’s in every one. God made sure that this important thing was given to all of us. Even if some of us never hear His name or see His face, he gave us all this beacon with which to recognize our pre-mortal home and all that from it comes. We all appreciate being loved, and feel it surround us when ours is accepted by others. I’m not so naive to believe this is all we need – it isn’t sufficient to just have love, but it is necessary. It is where we must start, and the well from which we must continually draw. This must be our motivation and our reason. It’s our Father in Heaven’s motivation and reason.
So why do we withhold it? Why do we disregard it? Why is it so tainted with lust, corruption, manipulation, pain, or even mockery? When we study to improve our knowledge or skills, is our focus to learn how to better express our love to God or our neighbor? When we studiously pick apart scripture, or strive to understand a principle of truth; a principle of the gospel; when we sit in meetings and try to assist in moving the work of God forward, are we striving to know how better to comfort a friend, or boost someone of lesser means to heights above our own? Is it so we know how best to assure those around us that their lives and efforts are important and that they have every reason to continue through their struggles? Can we love someone enough to say that enough is enough – can we give the ultimatums that degrading behaviors have no place in our lives and if the beloved perpetrator wants to stay, he or she is more than welcome to, but that the addictions, debauchery, and destruction cannot. Can we sit and laugh with another regardless of their opinions, beliefs, or motives? Can we forgive all that have, do (continually), and will ever hurt us – including ourselves? Can we see every created soul the same way in which our loving Heavenly Father and sacrificing Savior do? What will it take to make love affect every decision and effort we make? After all, love is the essence of the light of Christ that we must let shine. Without it, nothing else we do has any meat or meaning.
43- And again, behold I say unto you that he cannot have faith and hope, save he shall be meek, and lowly of heart.
44- If so, his faith and hope is vain, for none is acceptable before God, save the meek and lowly in heart; and if a man be meek and lowly in heart, and confesses by the power of the Holy Ghost that Jesus is the Christ, he must needs have charity; for if he have not charity he is nothing; wherefore he must needs have charity.
45- And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
46- Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail—
47 But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.