It's never too late for a post about love

The internet was bursting with posts last week about love, relationships, romance, and sacrifice.  I enjoy reading different perspectives on love and how it impacts our lives.  We were created to love and be loved and yet this is one of the most challenging concepts to flesh out in daily life.

Why is it so hard?  How can we lose sight so quickly of the importance of love?  What stands in the way of impacting our friends, our family, our world with the deep love of God?

Me.

I stand in the way.  My desires, my time, my important stuff, my to-do list, my feelings, my will.

And before we know it 'me' has become so important that the only thing capable of impacting is self.  And if all we impact is self, we lose out on the love that God designed.

When I get out of the way and begin thinking of the desires of others, the needs of others, and the wants of others, I begin to understand how to love.

When I get out of the way and truly dwell on God's character and His great love demonstrated  in Christ's sacrificial death on the cross, I won't be able to stop myself from loving.

Valentine's Day may be over, but love is never over.

It should be beginning and growing every moment of every day.

Tim Kimmel, in his book Grace Based Parenting, shares an excellent definition of love.  My husband asked me to write it on our kitchen chalkboard so we can be reminded of this throughout the day.

Instead of standing in the way of impacting others with love, I want to commit myself to striving for what is best in others, loving them in the same way that God loves me.

"In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 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.  Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us." -1 John 4:9-12

Let's get out of the way today and love.