Battles Over Love



My grandson Cole.
Now, how can you not
love a face like that?



 Wouldn't it be something, after all has been studied and said on the topic of conflict, to discover that all the battles we face in life are really the result of humanity's refusal or inability to give and receive love perfectly? We don't give love perfectly, and so the receiver is wounded. We don't receive love perfectly, so the giver is offended. Because we struggle to give and to receive love in right and  healthy ways we frequently end up demanding of others, either verbally or by our silence, what we ourselves are incapable of giving and receiving...authentic love that is flawless. Think about it.  Is our refusal or inability to love authentically and consistently not at the root of all of life's greatest and seemingly most difficult problems? As a present day example we can look at the complex financial problems in the world. There is a uproar all over the world, including here in our own nation, because of these problems themselves, as well as the systemic causes at the root of them. The questions many are asking are: "What is the cause of these problem?", "How did we get to this point?", and "What are the solutions?" The answers are as varied as the classes of people effected by the mess. Some say corporate greed is the problem, and in saying so they would be partly right. There can be no doubt that that exists, however, it always has. Others say that the wealthy have access to special loop holes in the tax code that allow them to legally pay less than their fair share of federal and state taxes. Doubtless there is some truth to this too, but again, loop holes have been around as long as tax laws and tax lawyers have been. We have to go deeper. The truth and the solution is much simpler, (not necessarily easier) and more foundational than the current Q&A gets to. What is really at the foundation level of this problem, for all people, Christian and non-Christian alike, is the refusal or inability to genuinely give and receive authentic, Biblical love. The Biblical doctrine of Divine love is as impossible to comprehend as it is difficult to accept. That GOD could possess perfect love is something simply beyond our ability to understand. We just do not have the capacity for it. Doubtless there are people with some pretty big heads and mighty large hearts, but they are not nearly large enough.  Add to our limited capacities the fact that God could and would give His perfect love in a perfect manner to a race that is wholly incapable of receiving it perfectly, and we find ourselves lost in a truth that we can't understand and struggle to embrace. Then because we can't, our natural and most common reflex is to deny that such a thing could ever exist. When we find ourselves faced with something we can not image the next step is to doubt that it exists. But then we find ourselves in a conflict with reality, because if it doesn't exist where does our own desire to give and  receive love better than we do now, come from? When we are struggling with relationships or issues that are very important, and come to what seems like an dead end because resentment and unforgiveness have made it impossible to go any further, who among us does yearn to give or receive the kind of love that offers perfect restoration and forgiveness, regardless of the personal costs? But who also does not know that longing and possession, that having a gift and giving it away, are often worlds apart. If a higher standard of love does not exist why is humanity forever trying to reach for a better, purer and greater love than the race has ever, ever been able to produce on its own? The truth is, regardless of how much we may try to deny a longing for love that is greater, most people desperately want to find that one does. Why? Why if none exists do we continue to long for it? The truth is, one does exist, even if none of us has ever seen it demonstrated first hand. So, where do we begin to look? No where is there a more stunning and baffling demonstration of what perfect love is, of what it looks like in the every day battles and conflict, both with others and within ourselves, than what has been historically documented by life of Jesus Christ. His words, deeds, his sufferings, death and resurrection are all the evidences we need to begin to believe that a greater love exists than mankind has ever be able to generate on its own. If we are genuinely interested in looking at the best historic example of perfect love the world has ever witnessed and documented we not need look further than the person of Jesus Christ, and his brief earthly life. Whether you accept him to be the Son of God or not, there can be no denying that he holds the exclusive position as being the only person who ever love perfectly. If this is true then it makes sense to ask ourselves how Jesus came by this ability to love in the manner he did. What was it about him that made him the exclusive possessor of love that is greater than any other one before or after him, has ever shown us?