L O V E

What is love?



















Are you kidding me?! How on earth could I define such a term? This is a word that people try all their lives to define: to define it for others, for themselves,…for their pets (?).




So where do you start? Well I guess the ever (and sometimes over) quoted 1 Corinthians 13 might be a good place to give it a go.

So love is:
-Patient
- Kind
- Does not envy
- Does not boast
- Not proud
- Not rude
- Not self-seeking
- Not easily angered
- Keeps no record of wrongs
- Does not delight in evil
- Rejoices in truth
- Always protects
- Always trusts
- Always hopes
- Always perseveres

Well as much as I like lists, I feel like something this big can’t be summed up in one. Not to mention I’ve heard that so much it’s sometimes hard not to go on autopilot while reading. I feel like God has given me a mandate (that word makes me laugh for so many reasons) to love. I think it might be my purpose in life. Even so, I do a terrible job at it. So you’re thinking, “Swell job, Gibson. You can’t even fulfill your purpose.” Ok so it’s a work in progress. First off I want to know what it is to truly love those I’m close to: my friends, family, significant other. In a society where “love” is thrown about so casually, it can be very difficult to understand what kind of love God wanted us to show.

On Oprah the other day (yes I occasionally watch Oprah…so do you, don’t lie) Lance Armstrong’s ex-wife came on to talk about what she wished she had known about marriage. She said, in so many words, that she wished she hadn’t given herself up. Well in a way I understood and sympathized. She was cautioning women not to loose their identity in their husbands and lives of their husbands. You have to be yourself, I’ll give her that. But the manner in which she discussed this for some reason didn’t sit right with me. I felt like she was saying not to sacrifice any of yourself. Well I’m sorry but I highly believe in sacrificial love! I have been given a pretty good example you could say. I want to be willing to sacrifice my wants and wishes for the good of those I love! I don’t want to do anything half-heartedly either.

So now to this dilemma that the world doesn’t seem to have issues with… Christ said it was no good just to love those who love you back. If I just do that I’m no better than the IRS. So I have to love everyone? Dadgum it. This gets harder by the minute. A pet peeve of a friend is when people say “I’ll love them, but just because Jesus told me to!” Give me a break. Do you think they are really loving at that moment? Probably not. So I need to love the competition, the people who give me tests, the people who laugh at me when I’m not looking, and the people who no one has ever seen or heard of. Wow this is big, something it takes a lifetime (and more) to understand.

Well I feel like we’ve gotten all of nowhere on this one.

Let’s try the Bible again, just read a little differently:
“Love never gives up, love cares more for others than for self, love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, doesn’t have a swelled head, doesn’t force itself on others, isn’t always “me first,” doesn’t fly off the handle, doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, doesn’t revel when others grovel, takes pleasure in the flowering of the truth, puts up with anything, trust God always, always looks for the best, never looks back, but keeps going to the end.”

So I need help. I need God to continually grow my capacity for love, and I need you guys to keep me accountable. I need to keep trying to figure out with love means.

Let me know if you have any other ideas of what love is!

And hey…

I love you.