Easy Loving

Have you ever said to yourself, “I wish I knew God.” Have you ever tried to know God by praying more, reading more, or maybe hanging around others who you thought knew God in the hopes that it would rub off? Even with all the trying, do you still feel as if you don’t know God?

This week in Weekly Word at Firstfruits, we discussed 1 John 4:7-8 in preparation for this weekend’s mass.  These verses have really stuck with me.

Beloved, let us love one another,
because love is of God;
everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.
Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.

There it is plain and simple, the key that unlocks the door to the knowledge of God. That key is love because God is love. If you know love, you know God.

Plain yes, but simple, not so much. With this knowledge of God comes a responsibility. That responsibility is to love one another.

On an average day, how well do you love?

I know I have fallen short in the love department more than I care to admit. I think that happened because I have always looked at love as someTHING. These verses have opened my mind to the possibility that love really is someONE.  If we can wrap our brains around the fact that God is love and if we abide in Him, we have the ability to love freely and fully. If we stay put with Him, stay tenderly connected to Him, then all we have to “do” to love is let Him out. We just need to freely send God into the people and the places we encounter daily.

I tend to get stuck on my definition of love. I set the bar too high and consequently I fall short. I hold myself to a high standard for loving. Rather than working on abiding in God and nurturing a tender connection to God, who is love, I work on honing my loving skills and it becomes a chore that gets tiring.

When I let the God love out, I find I’m pretty good at it and it’s easy.

Sometimes the God love is very simple as St. Therese mentions in Patricia Treece’s compilation of writings of St. Therese of Lisieux entitled Mornings with Saint Therese. “All I did was to break my self-will, check a hasty reply, and do little kindnesses without making a fuss about them-and lots of similar things.”

I’ve come to the conclusion that with love it’s not about quantity or quality; it’s about openness and willingness to let God, who is love, do the work.

That’s easy loving.

Joan