Love.

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another." (John 13:34)

Sometimes I am overwhelmed with love for others. Sometimes I am not. Sometimes that love is accompanied by emotion. Sometimes I feel no emotion, or even find it hard to love. When I look into the faces of my babies, into the eyes of my beloved Julia, that love comes freely and naturally.

But other times, when I stand in line in a government office and deal with the bureaucracy and negative attitudes of others, that love does not come so naturally. But still, God commands us to love ~ to show love ~ even in those hard time. Agape love, the love that is referred to most in the Bible, the love that is a quality of the fruit of the Spirit, is not a feeling, but an action. Though it may accompany a warm, fuzzy feeling, it is an action that is in response to God's command.

My prayer is that I would grow more and more in my love for the Lord that it would radiate from me in my actions, that love would be evident in all I do. Even in times when I don't feel so loving, may my actions always be proof that God in me, and His love therein, is greater than all else.

"Now these three remain: faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love."

(I Corinthians 13:13)