Love is teachable; those with loving parents, friends, or mentors are able to love easily. Love is socially and spiritually contagious. Many fear, for various reasons, loving others, and certainly fear loving God. Why is there a "Greatest Commandment" and a corollary to it - love God and others? Because if anyone can't love others - God's creatures - how could they love the Creator. If they don't love the Creator, how could they love His creatures?
The introduction on my Facebook page reads, "Victimized by many - maimed by some - destroyed by none!" In retrospect, when that was written, I expected hatred from my "friends." Indeed, some of my friends have "unfriended" me because they don't like some things that I write. For acquaintances, to unfriend can be expected, but when "friends" unfriend, it is devastating. Unfriending means they either never befriended or are no longer are friends. My mantra is, "friends are forever," and that statement is redundant, because friendship cannot come and go, and neither can love!
Shallow people befriend easily, and unfriend as casually. That type of "love" is faux. That, though, is how shallow people love God. As long as things go their way, God is their Way. When they don't, their way is the only way. As I sit here in my recliner, quite comfortably I must add, some out there have hatred for me. The same for anyone else. I call that, "worlds colliding." People live in their own spaces, with their bodies and personal space surrounding them. That space belongs to them, and when anyone enters that space, they are either welcomed our unwelcome. Some don't want you nor I in their space. If we enter uninvited, worlds collide! I have exploded the personal space of many.
Children love others easily. Most actually want their spaces infringed upon. They feel wanted and loved when others cuddle and kiss them. Gradually, children begin to protect their space for various reasons: they learn ugliness, learn to detest bad breath and body odor, squirm when screamers scream, and so forth. Their disdain is learned and they are conditioned to dislike it when others enter their space. Gradually, other infringements are added; they may be social, political, or even religious differences. They may even be repulsed by those who they perceive are lesser than themselves or a threat. My religious and political views, for instance, are a threat to those with different viewpoints.
Often personalities clash; people learn to protect their space merely because another may not behave exactly to the standards set by you.
Unrequited love is when a paramour's love is rejected because personal standards are not met. When anyone loves someone else, they expect love in return, and it hurts when it is not reciprocated. I love my children, for instance, and it hurts if I am not loved back. I love my wife, and if she doesn't demonstrate love by being the first to love, then withheld love hurts. If I love my perceived friends and they don't love back, then unrequited friend-love even hurts!
Because others don't love back, does not excuse not loving others. We must even love our enemies! Love is not tolerating others or smiling and waving; love is demonstrated by kindness, grace, charity, and companionship. That is best represented by forgiveness. All have sinned, and deserve damnation in Hell. People condemn each other by harshly judging one another. If someone is wronged, they say, "I will forgive, but never forget." That is not forgiveness. What if God merely forgave but always kept the wrong to Him in mind, and was quick to retrieve it? Would that be love? No, God wipes the slate clean and forgets the wrongdoing! He does that because God so loves us!
Throughout my life, I have been "victimized by many - maimed by some - destroyed by none!" On the other hand, the feeling that I am unloved, even hated, maims my heart. There is an emptiness where love should be. When friends unfriend, for whatever reason, it is hurtful. (And I'm not speaking of social media unfriending. In fact it should be easy to be Facebook friends, but some cannot even be that!)
People sometimes differ, and maybe be at odds. People who once claimed love, may turn against their "loved" one. "Worlds" for some reason collided. I think of the adulterous woman in the Bible being accosted by those with rocks to stone her. Jesus said, "Those without sin, cast the first stone" (John 8:7). Everyone just walked away because they were ashamed. (John 8:8-9). Did the would-be stoners demonstrate love by leaving the scene of the hatred? No, they should have reconciled:
Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. (Mat 5:23-24)Note several things therein:
- You as a Christian are to reconcile without regard to whom was at fault; merely, if anyone has something against you, whether you have wronged them or not!
- God doesn't want your sacrifice unless you have sacrificed your own pride or hatred.
- Reconciliation is what God wills, nay commands.
Reconciliation is restoring friendship; it is loving without pre-conditions. It is putting aside the actual or perceived offense because you too have offended someone or maybe many others. No Christian can not love because their little world has been punctured. No one can love another and cast the proverbial first stone, or any stone thereafter.
People think, I will restore love someday, while in the meantime, I will get even by punishing. That is the big stone cast! By the time you are through with convicting, judging, and inflicting punishment; your heart may have become so hardened that it's too late to love; you have conditioned yourself not to love, and even salivate like Pavlov's dog at the thought of inflicting punishment.
Those seeking retribution learn to hate. Christians who cannot forgive and forget may become so hardened that they lose the ability to love! By the time they see their error, it may be too late to love because of a hardened heart. Jesus asked, "Are your hearts hardened?" (Mark 8:17), knowing full-well that they had! Those who snub and are snobbish have hardened their hearts. Their attitude is that I don't care what God says; I will get revenge! all the while neglecting to examine their own sinful lives.
It may be too late for vengeful people. Vengeance belongs to God, and kindness to you, even to make friends of enemies, not enemies of friends! When, and if, it is too late, God will have the last words to hypocrites, "And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity" Mat 7:23).
There are solutions: remorse, repentance, confession, reconciliation, and loving those that are hard to love because they can again be the most loved! "Which of them (of those who have wronged) will love him (the one who forgives) most? Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he (Jesus) said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged" (Luke 17:42-43).
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