Could it be that love is the purpose, meaning, mission, and objective for us all?

Not just any love, for as Henri Nouwen writes, “The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family. Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly”.

Clearly, knowing, receiving and giving the kind of love Jesus calls us to and demonstrates isn’t easy. For we have been wounded by the unloving realities of life. But the hope is these hard realities don’t have to win or have the final work in our hearts and lives – God’s love can & does.

So could it be as simple and as complex that our lives are a journey on how to love well, which can only happen when we receive God’s love? He then renews our hearts and transforms our minds so that we can replicate His love.

Why so often are we reminded to forgive, to be patient, to be gentle, to trust, and to pray? All helpful tools in learning to love.

Marriage, if one is married, offers such fertile ground for God’s love to grow, to be learned, to be practiced, to be received, to be strengthened, and to be magnified.

May this love then overflow onto our children, and flood out into the streets.

Such a simple and yet extremely complex and difficult task it is to love well. Thus, “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son & that whosoever believes in Him receives everlasting life”.

Love looks to be the reason for this giving, the invitation, the receiving, and the living. A love that never quits, alway pursues, is sacrificial, and extravagantly generous. May we all learn to love more this way.