L is for Love

 

Almost one year ago, I rode my bicycle from Frisco, Colorado to Durango, Colorado. My route crossed the continental divide four times. I did a lot of pedaling uphill.

Some of the lessons I learned from the trip came to me months afterward. It would be difficult for some people to spend three weeks riding a bike alone across unpopulated mountain passes, but for me it was fun and I loved it.

When I am alone I can get along with myself, be productive, think clearly, and am happy.However, when I am alone I noticed that I can become selfish, merely because there isn’t anybody else around.

This is ok, but I have learned that it isn’t good for me to be alone all the time. I have a lot of energy, and if all that energy is put into serving me, a lot of it is wasted.

When I am with other people, helping them, I am less focused on myself. I notice that the faults I have become less. 

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.  For we know in part and we prophesy in part.  But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.” –1 Corinthians 13

So, what is love? I don’t know, that is something I am learning. However, I do know that love can be powerful-especially the love of God.

God’s love is so powerful and perfect that even though we hated him (when we were sinners), his love irresistibly drew us to him and caused us to love him. No matter how much I try to love, my love has flaws. But God’s love is perfect.