LETTING LOVE REIGN IN 2024
The love we show and experience during the Christmas season is something we can continue throughout the New Year—if we allow it. Our choice is to let God’s love shine through our thoughts, words, and deeds. Ain’t so?
ETERNAL PERSPECTIVES by Sally Bair
Love Defined
A few years ago, March of the Penguins, a National Geographic documentary, was released. The true heart-warming story of love touched the hearts of millions. It portrayed hundreds of penguins walking single file, like little men, across Antarctica’s ice and snow to their breeding grounds. Their beautiful courtship display preceded the females laying one egg each.
Each year the event unfolds. The female balances her egg on her feet and covers it with her thick feathers. After several weeks of devoted duty, she lets her mate take over so she can look for food. First, however, the pair practices transferring the egg from her feet to his without dropping it. Many losses occur during the transfer. Blizzards bring more losses. What a picture of love! The love of the parents for each other and the love for their fledglings are perfect examples of what love should be between people.
There is another kind of love, the divine love between God and man. Jesus taught divine love by example and story. The parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) is one many of us are familiar with. After squandering his inheritance and ending up swilling pigs during a famine, the son became so hungry he wished he could eat what he was ordered to feed the pigs. Out of desperation, he returned home, expecting no compassion from his father. And when his father surprisingly and royally welcomed him, the older brother became jealous and angry.
The father is the real hero in this parable. Both sons dishonored him—the younger son for leaving home and living a wild life, and the older son for his angry refusal to join the celebration of the return of his brother. Both sons were unworthy of their father's love. But he accepted them anyway—the young renegade, and the outwardly obedient son. What spectacular love! That's how God loves us. And if we love as He does, our love will be spectacular, too.
Can you think of a renegade or unlovable person whom you believe is unworthy of love? During this New Year, we can vow to show unloving, or unlovable, people the divine love of God through a kind word, through a gift of our time, money, or service, and especially through our unconditional acceptance.
Lord, help us remember that You love even the unloving and unlovable. With Your help, we commit to showing love this New Year to someone who we feel doesn't deserve it. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Merry Christmas!
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