What is Love?

What is love? How do we truly see ‘love’ here with our earthly eyes?  Do we ever really see, like the words in Brandon Heath’s song “Give Me Your Eyes,” or do we continue to see with our human eyes, and block out the stuff that does not appeal to us?

I’m not necessarily talking about the love between a man and a woman, although I will get to that in a moment. I’m talking about the pain we are able to see in others, or the hurt, anger, embarrassment, shame, or even the hate. All of those things can be seen if we truly see with God’s eyes instead of our own.

(excerpt from Brandon Heath’s Give Me Your Eyes)

Give me Your eyes for just one second
Give me Your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me Your love for humanity
Give me Your arms for the broken-hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach
Give me Your heart for the ones forgotten
Give me Your eyes so I can see

I still am not able to completely do this, and I feel it will be a long time. I have a confession. I’m not good at compassion. I am, but in my own way. I see it logically and try to find a way to make it better.

I received two phone calls today, both with some difficult news. One of my dear friends found out she had a terrible loss. Another good friend has gone through some difficulty lately and loss of her own, and in a sense, is now losing another important part of her life. I don’t ever seem to know what to say when someone loses something or someone precious to them. I feel uncomfortable talking about it, and so I see if there is some way to fix the problem. Generally, there isn’t. I love both of these ladies very much and can do absolutely nothing in one situation, but I can offer advice from experience in the other. And I am so very glad to be able to do so.

When it comes to compassion in a relationship between a man and a woman, I also am out of practice. Well, I’m not sure when I would have gotten practice since I haven’t been in a real, meaningful relationship in over 15 years. Yeah, I know, long time. I’m the person you go to if you want the really real truth about something.. not the one you go to for a shoulder to cry on. I wonder how my friends have patience with me when I’m the one needing someone to talk to. Thankfully they are straight-forward with me as much as I am with them and others.

I believe that being told what you want to hear is not psychologically healthy, because the lies – even white lies – are not good for anyone. No one should EVER try and hurt someone’s feelings, but everyone should be as honest as possible with the people they care about. Jesus never lied when He was asked about various subjects. Although it isn’t really covered in the Bible, I’m sure He was asked His opinions on different things. He answered in a loving manner (I’m working on mine, I swear!) with the truth. We should all do that.

Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (NASB)

⁴ “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!
⁵ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.