Taking Love to a Whole New Level
When we love and are loved by others, our lives are enriched.
Our libraries are overrun with novels and histories that deliver that message. It’s the message that both romantic comedies and feel-good movies leave us with. I’m a self-confessed romantic in the classic sense of the word, so I’m drawn to such stories.
But those stories never go far enough.
Let me explain my reasoning by first asking you to read this 12th century prayer from William of Saint-Thierry:
“You first loved us so that we might love you—not because you needed our love, but because we could not be what you created us to be except by loving you.”
A lot of you are just like me: you love the idea of love. We consider love the highest virtue. We would agree that our lives are enriched with love—when we love others and others love us. But if we leave it there, our lives may be enriched but not to the depth they could be.
We were created to love God, and if a loving relationship with God is missing from our lives, we don’t know the half of what love is like. When we discover God’s love for us, we are drawn to love Him in return. And that is as it should be. After all, we were created to love Him. Our lives reach their fullest potential when we walk in God’s love. When we’re centered in God’s love for us and when we’re loving Him wholeheartedly, every other aspect of our lives is enriched and enhanced by that love.
- Love for a spouse goes deeper when it’s grounded in the love of God.
- Love for family is richer when it’s immersed in God’s love.
- Love for others—even that annoying co-worker—becomes possible when God’s love takes a hold of us.
For that reason, I am driven to pray a prayer the apostle Paul prayed for the Ephesian believers:
“I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:17-19).
God, help me to comprehend just had deep and infinite your love for me is. I want to know that love—not just know about it but experience it—even though I will never be able to fully know and comprehend such infinite love. That’s what you created me for, and that’s exactly where I want to be.
When God begins to answer that prayer in your life, watch out! All your other relationships will change because God’s love will pour over into those relationships. That’s what a rich and abundant life looks like.
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