Love is

 

I was watching a show the other day where one of the characters was asking what love is. Without knowing the answer, she was going into hives thinking about her wedding day. In the show, someone eventually reads to her Shakespeare's sonnet:

SONNET 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

This seems to help her as she realizes that she must show up for her wedding day, hives and all, and hope that her husband-to-be loves her like Shakespeare says. But did you notice? He still doesn't say what love is. He just says what it is not.

Don't get me wrong, I love Shakespeare. And the spirit of the poem is as beautiful as the words. But I wonder why the show didn't quote the Bible? Because there is a definition of love. It's been written there for all to see for 2,000 years now.

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

So there we see. We now know what love is.

And it's nothing like we thought it was is it? The Bible also says that "God is love."

"Beloved, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God’s love was revealed among us: God sent His one and only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him..." 1 John 4:7-9

Do you know what I take away from this? Love is not anything like this world says that it is. When someone says, "I don't love you anymore," it simply means nothing. What they are really saying is "I don't feel wild and strong emotions about you anymore."

Love is sacrificial. It has nothing to do with selfish emotion. God himself is love and shows that love by sacrificing himself for us.

We love only when we take our eyes off of ourselves. And as Shakespeare said, if what he said about love isn't true...then no man ever loved.

So, I beg to say, do you love? Have you ever loved? In the true definition?

I think it is worth us all pondering. Including myself.