My prayer and self goal for 2018 is to seek and welcome peace into my mind, heart, and soul in whatever form God wills. My goal for this series is to remember the epiphanies that brought me closer to the person I hope to be as a Christian, a human being, and a friend.
Last week during Adoration, I read about the need for agape love. This is a term I learned about during my Confirmation classes, but it's a philosophy I haven't been able to translate into action.
For me, agape love regards how we should treat everyone, and it ties into how we forgive others. However, for me, forgiveness and love have always been separate. I thought, I can forgive them without loving them, but in actuality I can't. Christ calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves; this is the second greatest commandment God gives. How am I allegedly living the Christian life of forgiveness when I'm breaking such a strong commandment on a daily basis?
For clarification, when I thought of forgiving without loving them, I intended to forgive the action but sever ties with the person who committed the action. This led to feelings of anger and frustration that didn't make sense because in my mind I had "forgiven" the sin which meant I should have been wiped clean. God, on the other hand, wanted me to learn to love in a different way.
Surprisingly, the answer to agape love hit me in a social media post by Jada Pinkett-Smith. To paraphrase, she said that sometimes we are called to love someone from afar rather than beside them because we should not expect of ourselves to walk through everyone's trials with them. This is agape love. This is unconditional and brotherly love: to know how to use the love we hold for all people.
Just as life is not instantly easy when we accept Christ, love is not easy just because we feel it. We must learn how to live it.
Loving from afar is the agape love I am focusing on. I cannot forgive without first loving them despite past transgressions. I can't, rationally, be angry because a relationship or friendship ended when God is the One who held other plans for both me and them. If God calls us to be a light or blesses us with light from another, we shouldn't be upset when the light is provided and must now move forward to the next soul in need.
The world tries to define love into categories of passion, intimacy, familial, or friendly, but at the end of the day, all love yields the same result regardless of whether we try to use a category to our advantage. We give love to raise others up and to Christ; any other use for it is an abuse of its intention.
We love to encourage. We love to protect. We love to teach. We love others to shed light on their potential. We love because He first loved us, and we can continue to love because He has never left us. If I can integrate agape love into all my relationships, past, present, and future, I may be able to witness even a glimpse of the love He has for me.
Heavenly Father, we love You. We need You. Guide us as a father guides his children to all that is good, true, and right. Free us from the burdens of anger, regret, and guilt, and fill us with Your love. In Jesus' name, Amen.
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