Loving from a place of overflow...



I was reading an article by Mastin Kipp this morning about what it truly means to love someone...it seems like an important topic.







At its core, the message of the author was this:



To love someone is to let them go...to give them freedom...to allow them the privilege to love or not to love, with no coercion or manipulation.



And then I started thinking about God, and how God loves humankind...in Christian circles, we speak often of God's love...and among theologians, there is much debate and disagreement about the balance between God's love and man's free will...and what all of these things mean to the question of salvation and our destiny in the afterlife...



The Bible says, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son..." If you put any weight in the authority of the Christian scriptures as God's means of revealing himself to mankind, you might have to conclude that God loves everyone...not just a select few...I believe that he does.



And what of the freedom? Do you suppose the principle of "letting go" applies to the love of God? The article I read this morning says this about love:



"When you love someone, it's always from a place of overflow rather than lack."



I found this statement striking. As a human, I find it difficult to always operate out of a place of "overflow." Truthfully, I very often feel as if I'm operating from a place of lack...but this is never the case with God. He never operates from lack, and he has no need (as we understand need) of anything from us...he does not require our love, nor does he coerce love from us. He sets us on the path of freedom, and invites us into loving relationship with him.



So, whether in family, or romance, or even in our individual relationships with God, something about love is always true - no one feels loved when they are controlled or manipulated. Love is only love when it is offered freely, out of one's own desire to love.



In short, when we love from a place of overflow, we learn that love can never be taken from another, but only offered...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Contemplative Politics

Image
I began writing this blog 2 1/2 years ago...what can only be described as several lifetimes ago, from the perspective of the events that have transpired in my life since May of 2010.   I won't take the time to recount those events, but suffice to say, I never imagined that I would use this space to contemplate politics, or the place that our political perspectives may take on the path of our individual spiritual journeys... To rightly share my story, I must go back in time to January of 2008, when I, like many Americans, first heard then-candidate Senator Barack Obama speak after his groundbreaking win in the Iowa caucus.  I remember the experience quite vividly, because I was mesmorized by the ideal he seemed to represent.  As I sat in a theater this afternoon watching the Dinesh D'Souza political documentary "2016", I was struck by the fact that much of our political consciousness is defined by what each of us projects upon the candidate of our choice. ...
Read more

Crawl into a box, and wrap yourself up as a gift to others...

Image
What if we could wrap a box of love, and put it under the Christmas tree? What would it look like? Would it rattle if you shook it? Would it be heavy or light? I am woefully behind on my Christmas preparations this year...there's no Christmas tree in my front room...no Christmas candles around the house....no presents wrapped, or even waiting to be wrapped! What is wrong with me?? When I was a kid, my Dad sometimes traveled for work, and periodically, my Mom would let me sleep with her while he was away...on those nights, she would tell me stories from her childhood...and one that comes to mind is Christmas. When my Mom was a young girl in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Christmas festivities didn't really begin at all until the week between December 18 and 25. During this week, the general mercantile store would add a toy department, and for just that one week...the kids would ooh and ahh over all the toys in the display window. Christmas trees went up on Christmas Eve, and of...
Read more

A question to ponder...

Image
Last night I was reading The Richest Man in Babylon , by George Clason. If you've never heard of the book, it's a classic...an allegory on the subject of how to wisely handle your finances. Sometimes when I'm reading a book, I stumble upon a statement or question that is totally unexpected in its impact, and last night was such a time. In this chapter, the story was of a young man who had squandered the money his father entrusted to him to begin his life as a man. As a consequence of his bad choices and seemingly insurmountable debt, the young man ultimately ends up being sold into slavery... While a slave, the young man has a conversation with the wife of his owner, and relays his tale of woe...how his life has been marred by "ill fortune." In response to his tale, the wife asks this question: "Have you the soul of a slave or the soul of a free man?" If you happen to be a Christian, or even if you're simply familiar with the writings of the Apostle ...
Read more