To Love Well

I have never heard a teenager say that they feel over-loved. I’ve never heard them complain about how much everyone loved them. I wish I have, but I haven’t.

Towards the end of Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth, he reminded them that the act of loving is the greatest of all actions. He wrote that you can do a lot of great and incredible things, but if you do not love, then all these things are worthless, they don’t matter. You can speak in the tongues of men and angels, you can possess all knowledge, have faith that can move mountains, and you can even give everything you have away to the poor, but if you do not love, then all these things amount to nothing. So, Paul goes down the list of the gifts that the church in Corinth was clamoring for, yet he reminds them that these gifts are nothing without love; they are clanging gongs and cymbals. Empty.

If this is true, then shouldn’t our primary desire and aim be to love well? At the end of the day, shouldn’t the only question to be asked be, “Have I loved well, today?” You can buy a kid the most fashionable clothes, but unless you have given them love, they are merely rags. You can work all day and all night so they can live in a great big house, but without love, it is only a shack. You can send them to the best schools and give them the best education, but unless you have loved, it is foolishness. You can give your kid everything they want in material items, but unless you are giving them, above all other things, love, then you are only giving them empty gifts that are temporary and will vanish like a mist. They will be forgotten.

I think at the end of a life, when a kid has grown up to be an adult themselves, the thing they most want is to be able to say they were loved. Love is greatest. Love wins. It is the only thing that matters. Let us love well.

By Eric Faison
(As printed in the East Alabama Christin Family Magazine, March 2010)