What is Love? Simple Yet Powerful Points
What is love? The simplest ways to define love could be as follows:
- Love is an emotion, a feeling of strong attraction and connection to someone or something.
- Love is a choice that we make to put another’s needs before their own, with such empathy and resolve that if their needs are not met, neither are ours. Thereby, the well-being of both are united as one.
Love, at its core, can solely be defined by #2 above; often love is combination of both points, but it can exist without #1. Love can be sustained by choice, a willful decision, even when the emotion is withering or faltering. The first definition above, by itself, is really infatuation or desire, and can come and go.
God is Love
It is impossible to discuss love without discussing God, because God is love, not in a symbolic way, but in a literal way. Anywhere there is love, there is God, and vice versa. One who is loving toward another person is on the path to God and has God’s love within them. The very nature of God, the Holy Trinity, is a community of love, in which all of creation and existence was initiated. It also follows that in situations and circumstances where love is lacking, God’s presence is diminished, since unloving people are far from God.
Humans were created in God’s image.
The most basic need of every human being is to be loved. The most basic calling of God for our lives is to love God and others. Humans were created in a unique fashion relative to the rest of creation, in that we were created in God’s own image, specifically to know love and give love.
Characteristics of Love
How can you tell if a relationship is a loving one? Consider these characteristics for what is love:
- Love is Sacrificial
- Love is Eternal
- Love is Humble
- Love is Unconditional
- Love is “Other-Centered”
- Love is both an action of free will and a result of it as well
One of the most well-known scripture passages about love was written by St. Paul to the spiritually young believers in Corinth, Greece. It sums it up perfectly:
Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, is not pompous, it is not inflated. It is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick tempered, it does not brood over injury. It does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Although we are capable of love as human beings, we are also granted free will since freedom is inherently part of love’s nature. Since our inception, we have also chosen to be unloving, and have at times chosen evil as history clearly shows. There are no magical solutions to the problems we face today. It is only through love and in nurturing our relationships with God and each other that our world will be a better place. What is love? It is that in which the Kingdom of God grows day by day.
