Love perfected
This is my commandment,
That you love one another as I have loved you. John 15:12
Read 1 John 4:16—21
If not for Christ I would not know that love is written across everything. I would set off to live each day in a world that is such a mixture of beauty and terror, and I would meet with little kindnesses within it and find them as a relief, almost. A relief from the struggle and the competitiveness. Even relationships between people are so competitive, let alone the way we compete with the natural elements to carve out human life. Love, then, doesn’t come from the natural environment. It comes to it. And it comes to its conclusion: on the day of judgement it is God’s love that will unite me to him and that will unite all things. So it is the only option for me now. There is no other mode of life available to me since I am God’s child. It’s a great adventure. I’ll not be finally complete in love until I’m taken into that great conclusion.
Loving God, you are Father who loves the Son, the dear Son; the Son who calls the Father dear Father; the Spirit who sheds God’s love abroad in my heart. You give me each day so that I can know more of you by loving those you have placed around me. I thank you for the love poured into my heart, and pray that I will not quench the flow of it. Rather may I delight to be drawn into what you are doing in your love for the world, and may my life be, above all, my following in the direction your love leads me into this world.