October 23, 2008

• I want to know what love is…

  “I want to know what love is…I want you to show me…” ~
  Foreigner

  Ever since Sofia & I had started planning for our
  wedding a long time ago, I had gotten into the habit of listening to local
  music stations because I was looking for possible wedding/dance songs that we
  could use during our banquet.  Prior to
  this I was more comfortable with listening to music from my mp3 player jacked
  into the car, but it was nice to have some “up-to-date” music to keep me
  focused on driving when I made the lonely commutes from Boston to Hopkinton
  when I was still at EMC.

  So a few days ago, while I was driving back from the train
  station, heading back home after a long day at work, I realized something about
  many of the love/breakup songs that are played on the radio.  They all have a VERY shallow definition of
  what love is…

  I know it doesn’t sound so surprising, but hang with me for
  a second.  We’re living in a generation
  that I believe is ADDICTED to the thrill of “falling” in love with someone and
  the agony of breaking up with someone. 
  Those are the most common themes in almost every love-based song that is
  played on our radios today.  Our
  generation probably has the most compilation of words that describe the thrill
  and the agony, but the least when it comes to faithfulness, commitment, and perseverance.

  While we do enjoy the songs that describe love that’s been
  tested through the years;  love that
  makes us glad that we made it;  we’re
  just more enthralled with the songs that tell our “love story” or why it’s too
  late for an Ex to apologize.  Our culture
  is more familiar with what “irreconcilable differences” mean than “until death
  due us part.“  We’re in a
  love-sick-broken hearted generation, where pieces of our hearts are in so many
  other people that our hearts are no longer our own anymore.

  The saddest aspect about this addiction is how Christ-followers
  have imported this ideology into their relationship with God.  We’re used to the emotional up and down
  rollercoaster type of Christianity with God. 
  We know more of what it’s like to have God “break our hearts” than we
  know what it means to have our heats remain soft and malleable for Him to shape
  us.  We know more of what it’s like to
  pursue being in the will of God or wanting to be filled with His Spirit than we
  are actually doing and being that.

  So what is love and how I can I show it?

  • Love is not fickle emotion, but steadfast choice.
  • Love is not about my desires, but the needs of another.
  • Love is not manipulative, but willing to be taken advantage
    of.
  • Love is not self-satisfying, but a daily sacrifice.
  • Love is not going from thrill to thrill, but striving to birth
    life no matter the cost.

  Who can do any of this but God alone?  Yet, who better to follow and be empowered by
  in order to know genuine love?  For all
  the songs and words our culture has used to described the thrill and agony, I
  don’t think they can compare to the simple words that describe the lover of our
  souls:  Faithful And True

   Alleluia, He is faithful and true!

  • 11:01 pm
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