Where’s the Love, Man?

How absurd it is to think that man is on the earth as the last stop on the evolutionary chain! Do you really believe that you are simply an offshoot from a gorilla, with less hair and the ability to process? With all of our intellectual ability, sometimes we aint so smart! Not only do you have the ability to think, but more importantly you have the profound capacity to feel. Dogs are affectionate, but you get the privilege to love. Love is the greatest thing in the world and without it life would screech to a halt. So, I ask you, where’s the love, man?

Love isn’t something that happens to you, love is something that you choose to do. It always amuses me when people act as if love just happens to your heart, because, you know, the heart knows… Your heart is you, you silly rabbit. When the conditions are all lined up, you choose to do it. So, what should you do when the conditions don’t line up? You should love anyway. I don’t have to tell you how wonderful  life becomes when love is involved, right? Well, imagine choosing that experience at all times.

I can remember sitting through a class called, Power for Abundant Living. PFAL, the initials of the class, gained a permanent place in the form of a tattoo on my left forearm. That’s how life-changing the class was for me. Above everything else, the class taught me about God’s love and incredibly for maybe the first time, I learned to love myself. Even more incredulously, I learned that I had to love myself before I could love other people. But, here’s where it gets tricky. Loving other people wasn’t something that just happened to me because I felt a certain way. Love was something I had to choose to do, just like I chose to do with myself. And because I was so filled with God’s love (which is synonymous with being filled with His Word), I did it like it was my job! I chose to be kind, tender-hearted and forgiving. I chose to build people up rather than tear them down! I was on the high road baby and everything started working out.

As the years rolled on however, I sort of forgot the most important part of my former success. Oh I still knew God’s Word, but I forgot the love part. God’s Word without the love part is still true, but became hollow and empty in terms of my personal happiness. I had become religious. I did all of the behaviors minus the love. And when I reflect back on those empty years, I realize that instead of choosing to love, I was waiting to feel the love. And I waited for a long time… While you are waiting to feel the love (something the whole world participates in), life becomes all about you. Love is never all about you. God so loved that He gave, right? Well, I think God knows a thing or two about love. God is love.

You can choose to love at any moment in life. What does love look like? Easy, just think of someone you know who loves you. Well, what do they do with you? Do that! Love is interested in the object of its affection. Love notices and responds to what it sees. Love seeks the other’s happiness and not its own, but always receives its own because you receive back what you give out. The more you choose to love, the more love you will receive. When you are choosing love, you are living where God lives. And within that wonderful, tender haven, you never have to fret and worry about getting your needs met because your needs start getting met before you even have to ask. Love is life on steroids.

So many, many people are wandering the earth desperately seeking that elusive love when it is already in their heart waiting for the opportunity to come out. I don’t care what your background is or how difficult your life has become, love is there waiting for you to choose.  Choose love. But, and you can trust me on this one, do not wait for the feeling unless you have a lot of years to burn. Love isn’t a feeling, it’s a decision; a decision that produces a wonderful feeling. How crazy is it that the thing you seek so ardently, you already have. It’s not the absence of love that has been screwing your life up, it’s the absence of giving what you already have that’s been doing it to you!

If you want love (and who doesn’t?), you have to give it. Build, build, build. Bless, bless, bless. Stop being afraid and open your heart. We’ve all suffered while experiencing life to some extent because of the darkness that has prevailed at times. We’ve all gotten hardened and calloused. We’ve all been jaded, sadly increasing with age. But that wall you’ve constructed around your heart isn’t protecting you at all. Instead it’s preventing you from the experience called life that God intended for you. Yes it’s scary. Yes, people will still run roughshod on it, but open your heart anyway. The rewards of love not only heal every hurt, but they offer the promise of a fantastic life; true power for abundant living!

Don’t you dare wait for tomorrow to try it out. Do it right now! Give it to the person you see in this very moment. Shower it on your wife or your husband. It doesn’t matter if they don’t deserve it. You deserve it. Damn it man; doggone it woman, you deserve it! Pour it on your children and your grandchildren. Lavish it on your friends. Heap it on your co-workers. Overflow it on your boss. Love, love, love like your life and happiness depends upon it because it really does.

You are not an intellectual gorilla that manscapes, you are a wonderful human being with a heart. Open it! You are the top of the food chain not because you evolved over millions of years but because you have a heart of love from a God of love. Choose love! Give love! Open your heart…

Just some good “love” thoughts…