What is Love?

Valentine’s Day is around the corner (or the weekend) so naturally my thoughts turn to love. But what is love, anyway? Have you ever really pondered that?

My daughter’s 14 year-old friend recently shared her definition: “…based off of my first crush….When they look at you, you look away. Whenever you stand near them, you can’t talk. When they talk to you, you mumble and blush and try to play it cool. You think about them a lot you think that you see them everywhere...”

I couldn’t help but giggle at this rather accurate description of infatuation... but what about love? Is it a feeling? Something you can’t control? Is it something you can fall into, like a puddle? Is it something you can create? Imagine? Share? Keep to yourself?

My wise old dictionary has this to say:

 “An affection of the mind excited by beauty and worth of any kind, or by the qualities of an object which communicate pleasure.” Webster’s 1828 Dictionary

But like you may have asked when you were 14, how do you know if it’s real love?

I have to look to my greatest example to judge the feelings I myself have.

Jesus Christ, as in all things, is the perfect example of love. He also had much to say on the subject. He is the one who mentioned loving others as you love yourself, and that the greatest display of love is the laying down of one’s life for those one loves. He exemplified what he taught; he often, in the few pages we have about his life, put the needs of others not equal with his own, but above his own. 

When weary he kept serving (Luke 4:40). When trying to find time to ponder alone, he got up to help (Luke 9:10-11) and of course in his atoning sacrifice, though he pleaded to be released from such unbearable agony if there was any other way to save us, when he found there was not he kept on enduring, all the way to the end, out of love (Luke 22:42).

He laid down his life day by day in his untiring service, washing feet, healing wounds, teaching, feeding, comforting. And in the end he literally laid it down to rescue us.

So, do I love? And what or who do I love? Who do I care about like I care about myself? What am I laying down my life for day by day, even minute by minute. Being human, I’m sometimes distracted, even from what really matters to me. But what do I keep coming back to and never give up on?

I’m pretty sure love is a lot more than mumbling and blushing, or falling in a puddle, or even a strong “affection of the mind”. If I learn anything from Jesus, I think love is a verb.