Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Sometimes I ask myself what love really is.

Is it like on the cartoons when people have hearts in their eyes?
Is it like the movies where, after a couple of hours of angst, the boy and girl always end up together?
Is it like television where people seem to fall in and out of love as often as they shower?

When I was on my way to work this morning, I saw an older couple walking down the street holding hands. I think that's what love is. When maybe our bodies aren't in as good of shape as they once were, our hair has turned gray (or maybe loose), parts that used to be perky now sag, and we can't get around as well as we used to - but there's still that commitment and respect for each other.

Love isn't about the physical or even the emotional. And love isn't necessarily voluntary. But, you know, sometimes it is. Because love is an action. And sometimes we have to make ourselves love people who are hard to love. I know sometimes I'm hard to love, but God does it anyway.

We have the best description we can ever find for love right there in I Corinthians 13:
Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.

What a wonderful picture God painted for us through Paul of what love really is. I know that there are people in my own life who are hard to love and others who are easy to love. But I'm supposed to love them all just the same. Jesus loved people like Hitler, Hussein and Bin Laden just as much as He did you and me when he died on the cross for us. For all of us.

Lord, help me to love those who may seem to be unloveable. And help me to prove myself worthy of the love of others.