To love and be loved is the greatest gift of all.
This was the phrase on a picture in my home, growing up. I’ve always thought about it. Believed it. Dreamed to have it.
Love.
I saw this exact same cross stitch picture on a wall recently. I couldn’t believe it, to be honest. But it struck my heart and made me begin to think about that all over again.
To love and be loved…
It’s true that loving others isn’t enough. Being loved isn’t enough either. We need both. The give and take of reciprocated love. The love and loving.
In my experience, it can be hard to love or be loved well. Most of us are innately selfish…well, all of us are, if we’re being honest…and love is sacrificial. Giving love is sacrificial, but I don’t think people often realize that receiving love in a proper way is also sacrificial. Many of us feel undeserving of love, therefore we push it away. Others feel they deserve all the love in the world, but don’t want to give it the same. Both of these are selfish. Yes, selfish. It’s just as self-centered to push love away as it is to demand it from everyone around you.
This can make it very difficult to move in true love. I’ve begun to lean into the heart of it though…God is love…without Him love doesn’t exist.
To love completely we must first experience the love of God. Without God as our anchor, our love will be self-serving. Our hearts are deceitful, as scripture states. We often fool ourselves into believing that we are the most selfless people on earth. Only desiring to champion others, help others, and invest in others. But I believe when we examine ourselves more closely, we’ll often find a selfish motive in a lot these things. Not all the time, but quiet often. Many times, we “champion” others because we need to feel important. Sometimes we “help” others because we need to feel needed.
We all want something. Everything we do is for a reward of some kind. It’s good to examine our motives on a regular basis.
With our eyes set on heaven we can truly love and be loved. When we give and receive love through a focus on God, we find balance. When His approval is all that matters, then we can relax and love someone just because. That’s the best. To love just because. I believe that’s when we are closest to getting the whole thing correct. God loves us…because.
I tell my kids, “I love you. You don’t have to do anything to make me love you. I love you because you exist.”
We can be sure that if God took the time to create us, then He loves us. We can also ascertain that if He created others, then the same is true of them. We are each valuable simply because we exist.
To love and be loved is the greatest gift of all.
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed His love among us; He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us, and His love is made complete in us. 1 John 4:7-12
365 Days in the Presence 