What's Love Got To Do With It?

What's love got to do with it? Sounds like a good line for a song. I have a few thoughts left over from valentines day. I am not a big fan of valentines day. It is a marketing racket that forces you to do something nice for you sweetie. The whole thing seems to loose  some validity when you and every other guy on the planet does something nice for someone they love. And by the way if this is the only time you do something special for that special person in your life, "shame on you."

 I am seeing more and more that love is a choice. V-day seems to eliminate some of your ability to choose. You can choose the type of flowers, the special gift or where you might go to eat, but the choice has been made for you when all of this is going to happen. For me something is lost in this. It feels forced. But I am straying from my real thought here. Was not really intending to rail on V-day just that I am not a fan. Although it did cause me to think a little about love. So, what does love got to do with it?

I have decided that maybe love has everything to do with it. Scripture tells us that, "God is love". This seems the very essence of who God is. It is funny to me how we attempt to explain God. Explain him, explain how and why he does the things that he does. Even though he clearly states in scripture, "My ways are not your ways." I don't fully understand God and actually kind of glad that I don't. But I do think about the fact that his love must be very different. A more excellent kind of love. A love I wish I could extend to others more often.

Maybe the challenge then begins how we would define love. That is where we get in trouble. Many ideas about what love really is. Most of them have to do with feelings and emotions. Specifically our own feeling and emotions. I have a thought, and it is just a thought related to this idea that God is love.

I think it is safe to say God's love is not based on an emotion that comes and goes like the Texas wind. Safe to say as well that his love is not based on, "what have you done for me lately." Some how he does not love one more than another. His love does not hinge on my response or lack of it. His love really is other. It is other than how we typically define love.

God's love seems to be a choice. He has simply chosen to love. That kind of love is other. It would not sale very easy in our culture. What if you told a man who grips about his wife, "you need to simply choose to love her." What about the wife who's husband forgot V-day again! The council was simply, "you can choose to love him." People would be lining up for that kind of council. Wouldn't they?

God's love is transforming. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that, he has chosen to love.  So, what's love got to do with it? Maybe everything, "but hey, it's your choice."

Peace, todd