So, I just finished watching The Giver and it was a really
good movie. It definitely made me stop and think about life, and about what we
take for granted. It really made me appreciate what we have. I know that there
is so much we go through each day; there are so many distractions out there.
Sometimes we forget that there is much to be thankful for, so much to rejoice
about- the joy of friendship, laughter, family, the love of the Father.
The movie also made me so thankful that we as people, can
feel deep raw emotions. Because in the movie, the
elders of this so-called "perfect community" integrated a system where citizens had to take injections each morning
that dulled and kept their emotions at bay. The people only knew of
feelings like love, anger, joy- but were never able to feel them. Like the
Giver or keeper of all past memories said, they were just living in gray
shadows and echoes of what life once was. Seeing this, I am grateful that we
are not stunted and that we do not live gray echoed lives like those in
"The Community." We have life, we have color, we have music, all
these beautiful things! Yes, there is hate and war, there's crime, there's
death, there's murder- but the pain and the suffering is what makes faith,
hope, and love all the more beautiful, all the more precious, all the more
real. Those feelings are worth fighting for. Jonas, the apprentice of the Giver
and the main character of the movie, fought for exactly that. He caught a
glimpse of the past- the beauty and joy along the evil and darkness of
societies before them (basically the kind of society we live in now). He was
scared at first when we saw glimpses of war. He thought that maybe the elders
were right to surpress these emotions to protect society. But in the end, he
still knew that sometime was wrong.
Emotions come with the good, the bad, and the ugly, but despite all the crap in this world, love is worth fighting for. I mean love is what drives us all isn't it? It's what drove God. It's what drove Jesus. God loved us so much that He was willing send His only son to earth to bear our sins and suffer on our behalf, so that we wouldn't have to pay the penalty of death for our sins, so that we wouldn't have to face eternal separation from God if we believe in Jesus, so that we could be reconciled into a right relationship with Him. Jesus was passionate about us. He loved us and was willing to die on the cross for us because He knew that love was worth fighting for when he died, conquered sin, and rose again! That is true and perfect love. The love that we've been searching for, the love that I've known about but never really experienced until now, rests in Him. The deep love that we long for and crave for in this life is a reflection of what He created us for- a deep relationship with Him. Sometimes we search for it in the wrong places, but true, perfect, and unfailing love can only be found in Him.
It is truly beautiful and I'm so glad to see glimpses of His
love in my friends when the give to others and in my family when they are
thoughtful, in strangers who are kind and self-sacrificial. I'm so thankful
that God created us in His image. How wonderful and how beautiful that we are
created in the image of Him who feels deeply and who loves deeply. Love makes it
all worth it. God is love and we are beloved.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
The Excellence of Love
If I
speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I
have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries
and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove
mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my
possessions to feed the poor, and if
I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me
nothing.
Love is
patient, love is kind and is
not jealous; love does not brag and is
not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its
own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in
unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things,
believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never
fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy,
they will be done away; if there are tongues,
they will cease; if there is knowledge,
it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but
when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child,
I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when
I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see
in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but
then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But
now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.
What is Love?
1 John 4:7-21
God is Love.
Beloved, let
us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves
is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not
know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was
manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into
the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not
that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved,
if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has
seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love
is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in
us, because He has given us of His Spirit. We have seen and testify
that the Father has sent the Son to
be the Savior of the world.
Whoever
confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in
God. We have come to know and have believed the love which God
has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides
in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so
that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as
He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect
love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who
fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us. If
someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the
one who does not love his brother whom he has seen,cannot love God whom he has
not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who
loves God should love his brother also.
