Connections about Love

Thomas and I are reading through Let's Start with Jesus. (I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to think about how much God loves us.) This quote stuck in my mind and has begun to form connections with other things in life. Speaking of Eve's temptation:

"Suddenly Eve began to question the goodness of God, whether he was withholding something good from them. For the first time she considered the possibility that something could be good in itself apart from God. As a result her question became a doubt. The doubt became distrust. Distrust quickly became distance and manifested itself in mechanisms for self-protection..."

Then I read a friend's blog about playing the game Good Christian/Bad Christian. In conclusion she says, "The only real alternative to my game is that I began to believe that God loves me. For reals.  Loves me with depth; steadily, patiently, fiercely, unfailingly."

Things can't be good in themselves. People can't be good by themselves. They need... we need some serious love that breaks through the self-protection we put up.

Dostoevsky weighed into the conversation. I can't quote the entire three chapters, but elder's wisdom in the chapters "The Old Buffoon," "The Women of Faith," and "The Woman of Little Faith" is amazing. He says lying works against love (just like the serpent in the garden):

"Above all, do not lie do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect toward himself and others. Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love, and having no love, he gives himself up to passions and course pleasures in order to occupy and amuse himself, and in his vices reaches complete bestiality, and it all comes from lying continually to others and to himself. A man who lies to himself is often the first take offense..."

He answers the woman who questions the existence of God and the immortality of the soul (love conquers doubt):

 "By the experience of active love. Try to love your neighbor actively and tirelessly. The more you succeed in loving, the more you'll be convinced of the existence of God and the immortality of your soul. And if you reach complete selflessness in the love of your neighbor, then undoubtedly you will believe, adn no doubt will even be able to enter your soul..."

He also tells a story about a doctor who said that the more he loved mankind the less he could stand individuals, and says this happens because often the loving is not selfless loving, but self serving love, and therefore not love at all.

But all this is nothing new. John 1:1-5:

 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."

And verse 14:

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."

And John 3:16-21

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been carried out in God."

And this is what we celebrate during this season. God, in love, sent Jesus into the world so that Jesus, in love, could show us what love looked like. Love is what connects everything and in my world of splintering emotions, needs, frustrations, and doubts, Love is what will bring salvation.

"and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." Matthew 1:21
"But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons." Galatians 4:4-5