Wuv...Twu Wuv...

Name that movie. If you can't, I am shocked and order you to go watch the Princess Bride right now...well, finish this first and then go watch it.

I'm on a crusade to redefine love because I think the word has lost all of it's beauty and depth and importance these days. Like it shouldn't be possible to say, in the same sentence, that I love chocolate cake and I love my mom. Is it the same? Do I love the cake as much as my mom? Hope not. Why don't we have a better word for my feelings about the cake - which I do seriously enjoy but wouldn't take a bullet for. The Greeks did. They had 4 words for love. All that aside, my real issue is in how easily we throw the word around but don't really mean it. Like if a boy tells you he loves you but moves on to someone else in a few months or so, then he didn't really love you, he was just infatuated with you. And we use the word to get something out of people, but when we're done with them we just throw them away and move on. That's not love at all. So let's break it down a little bit and figure out what true love really is. In order to get this right I'm going straight to the Bible because that's truth consolidated into one book.

We'll go straight to the love chapter (1 Corinthians 13) and see what it has to say.

1 - Love is patient (even when things aren't going your way and everyone is driving you crazy)
2 - It's kind and not jealous.
3 - Love doesn't brag and isn't arrogant
4 - It doesn't act unbecomingly (which means inappropriately or in a way that's unattractive or takes away from your character)
5 - It doesn't seek it's own (it doesn't put itself first or demand it's own way)
6 - It's not provoked (easily aggravated or bothered)
7 - Love doesn't take into account a wrong suffered (no holding grudges)
8 - Doesn't rejoice in unrighteousness but rejoices with the truth (doesn't find joy in what is base, crude and ugly but finds joy in all things good and true)
9 - It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Meaning that for the sake of the one loved, it will endure, believe, hope and bear up under whatever comes.
10 - Love never fails. It never walks away, it never quits, it never gives up, it is faithful to the end.

Man. That's huge. That's exactly what my heart aches for and can't ever seem to find. To be loved like that and be able to love others like that. How amazing would the world be if we could put into practice a love like that? I'm pretty sure that's what God was shooting for when He said that we should first love Him with everything we have and then go love others as much as we love ourselves. The bad news is that we just keep messing it up over and over and over again because we have this horrible tendency (we'll call it sin) to put ourselves first. The GOOD news (and when you really start to understand this you can see what amazingly good news it is) is that Jesus gets it right absolutely every time. Think about that. All that we've just said about love is exactly how Jesus feels about you every minute of your life no matter what you do or say. So if you're looking for true love and can't seem to find it, it's because you're looking in the wrong place. One of my favorite passages in the Bible is in Acts 17. It says that He made each of us to seek Him, to reach out for Him with our whole hearts to find Him, because He's not far from each of us. It says that in Him we live and move and exist. I don't believe it's possible to get any closer to anyone than that right there. So you do have a True Love. One who promised never to leave you or abandon you. If you're having a hard time finding Him, keep reaching out with all you've got until you find Him. Because He's right there - He said so.