This weekend, I celebrated seventeen years of marriage to my wonderful wife, Michelle. While I've not been a perfect husband, or anything remotely close to it, I hope I have learned something and gotten a little better.
As I reflect on the last seventeen years, I think about all of the things I've experienced and learned. One of the most valuable lessons is that love is not something we can hoard. It is not something we gain by grabbing or taking. Rather, it's something we gain as we give it away.
In a world where so many things seemed to be acquired through gathering, holding, and locking it up, love, the ultimate prize, is quite the opposite. It truly grows the most when we freely share it with others.
The happiest moments in my seventeen years of marriage, and throughout the other aspects of my life as well, are those where I gave away my heart and lived with reckless abandon for the Kingdom built on love. The Kingdom built by the great I AM.
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. (Acts 17:24, 25 NIV)
Our God is not a God who demands, but rather, gives. And when the world lost it's way and forgot what love looked like, this God came down and dwelt among us as a fellow human. Love was not just an idea written in the pages of a religious document. Love became flesh, born in a dirty stable, and murdered because he loved the outcasts and sinners. Love was crucified because he loved freely, in the face of pride, position, and possession. Jesus was willing to give it all away, and in the end, he changed the world.
Michael W. Smith describes this kind of love with the following lyrics...
There was a man who walked on water
He came to set the people free
He was the ultimate example
Of what love can truly be
'Cause His love was His life
And He gave it away
You gotta give it away
If we want to experience true joy, true peace, and true love, we must learn that the only true way to obtain these things is by giving them away. In a world that teaches us to gather all we can, the Kingdom of God shows us that ultimate joy and peace are found along a different path.
If I have learned anything over the last seventeen years, it's the power of giving away love. My best moments as a husband have not been the ones where I was in control, but rather, the ones where I laid down my pride. And to be honest, that hasn't been nearly often enough. My best memories are usually the ones where I didn't necessarily get my way.
Do you want to find love?
Quit chasing it and start pursuing ways to share it.
Stop demanding it and start delivering it.
Instead of manipulating others to get it, start humbling yourself to give it away.
As Jesus so powerfully taught us in his life, and death...
“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. (Mark 8:34, 35 NIV)
Love, the ultimate expression of life, isn't love, till we give it away.
shine!
Jason
