Thinking About Love

In the past week, Love has been on my mind.

My sister-in-law shared an interesting article which discussed the difference of 'self-love' and 'God-love'.

Self-love 'involves loving someone by wanting to be them and thus, wanting to have what they have which leads to: Object love/ idealization, which is when you love someone by idealizing them as someone worth having' which leads back to Self-love because ‘what one “has” elevates what one is,’ meaning to love and to be loved is fulfilling who you would like to be .... through who you have ... that one loves out of the interest of ultimately pleasing oneself....we break up with our beloveds when they fail to make us feel good about ourselves – they never spend time with us or they’re too clingy, they say hurtful things or they get easily hurt, etc. etc. ......

I hope that we don’t seek to serve Him to make ourselves feel good. We shouldn’t love God because what we learn about Him and put into practice in our daily lives might nurture our self. We should love God simply because He first loves us..... Following Christ won’t always make you feel good.... the way to love God and still escape the ‘self-love concept,’ is to serve Him even when it doesn’t make you feel good, even when you face obstacles that invite misery to your life. Loving God involves trusting that He is worth the suffering that you experience as an effect. C.S. Lewis says, “To love involves trusting the beloved beyond the evidence,” and I pray that I won’t rely on ‘evidence’ of God’s love for me (i.e. making me feel good about myself) in order to trust Him.

It crossed my mind how often we hear the 'I love you' dialogues on TV. In fact, almost every movie and sitcom have exhausted the typical 'I fell in and out of love', 'failure to commit to loving someone', 'what is love enigma' scenarios that the dialogues are all too familiar. I thought about some of these typical scenes and realised that it is always about Me, Me, Me. Self-love, just as described above. I did a quick search online for the definition of Love out of curiosity and the results really surprised me:

"strong feeling of affection"

"a great interest or pleasure for something".

"deep affection or sexual love for"

"like something very much"

I have never directly considered how different the world's view of Love is to that of a Christian's. I mean I grew up with the TV as well as hearing about 1 Corinthians 13 in abundance as I'm sure a lot of non-Christians do. Many of them use 1 Corinthians 13 in their weddings too. But it is only until today that I have given this a serious pondering.

I looked up 1 Corinthians 13 immediately.

"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing."

What strong statements about the ultimate supremacy and importance of love!

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, 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. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

What a stark contrast with the popular worldview. How deep and opposite is this type of love as opposed to the selfish love we are so used to hearing about. Reading and rereading this passage just fills me with awe and humility. I think it would be really difficult not to agree wholeheartedly that this must be the definition of Love because it is so perfect. The definition is so touching that it reaches deep into my heart and my spirit can't help but recognise that this is True Love.

1 John 4: 8 then says "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."

God IS Love.

My mother-in-law shared a video clip this week with us on a question asked to Ravi Zecharias about why God doesn't stop gun-triggers i.e. sufferings. His answer was astounding and like all things truthful, reached deep into my heart.

"I would say this to you, that the supreme ethic that God has given to us, is the ethic of Love. It is the peak of all intellectual and emotional alignment, this thing we call love which places value upon the other person of worth and as something to be protected."

"It was interesting that of all people, it was Oscar Wilde, on his death-bed in his 40s, with his lover by his side ‘Robby Ross’, he turned to Robby and said “Did you love any one of those little boys for their own sake?” It was an incredible question to ask, by a man who was a hedonist, on his death-bed, in his 40s, and he said “Robby, did you ever love one of those little boys for their own sake?” and Robby Ross said “No, I can’t say I did”. He said “Bring me a Minister, Bring me a minister.” And it was in his magnificent poem ‘the Ballard of Redding Jail’ that Oscar Wilde said “only Christ was big enough to cleanse his heart and forgive him for all that he had done”. The point even the hedonist realised, was that in pleasure also, value and love are the supreme ethics that can be treasured." 

"But you can never have love, without intrinsically weaving into it, the freedom of the will. You cannot have love without the freedom of the will. If you are compelled by some machine to a certain decision, you can never love. You can ‘comply’ but you will never be choosing to express that sentiment and the reality of love." 

"Love is a supreme ethic, and freedom is indispensable to love and God’s supreme goal for you and for me, is that we love Him with all of our hearts, and love our neighbours as ourselves for him to violate our free will would be to violate that which is a necessary component for which love can flourish and love can be expressed. If you’re always asking for God to stop the trigger, why not God stop everything else? The next time you hold a cup of boiling water he makes it frozen water instead. Next time you’re about to cross the street and you’re gonna be hit, he pulls your leg back. What you’re asking for is a different entity than humanity. As wonderful as it may seem that in stopping that, you think He’s protecting you from that which is destructive. The greatest denial that you’re asking for is the freedom of your will to be able to choose and to love God with all your heart and all your soul."  

"You’ve got love as the supreme ethic and the freedom of the will to choose that love, all of the other contingencies come in and can become explained why it’s possible to either chose or to reject so that love can ultimately reign supreme. If you want compliance and some kind of a mechanical response, your question itself will self-destruct. You’re asking the question because you’re free to ask it, and you’re free to ask it because you’re free to love and when you love Him in spite of all the contraries that you see around us, you’re trusting Him for having the supreme wisdom and the knowledge to ultimately bring a pattern out of it all." 

"We think for example, we know SO much. This story is told in an eastern folklore of this man who lost his horse that ran away..."

Neighbour: “You know, bad luck isn’t it, your horse is gone”
Man:“What do I know about these things?” 

A few days later the horse came back with 20 other wild horses and........

Neighbour: “Amazing, it’s not bad luck, it’s good luck, you’ve got 20 more!” 
Man: “What do I know about these things?” 

His young son is out taming one of the new horses, that young horse kicks him and breaks his leg. 

Neighbour: “Terrible isn’t it? Your son’s leg is broken, bad luck that these horses came.” 
Man: “What do I know about good luck and bad luck?” 

A few days go by and a bunch of thugs are coming looking for recruits to join their gang and they’re looking for all the able-bodied young men and they’ve come to pick this young man but find out his leg is broken and they say, “We don’t want him, we’re going to move on to the next house.” 

Neighbour: “Good luck isn’t it that your son’s leg was broken!” 

In one little series of episodes, we don’t know what lies ahead. Why don’t you wait till you stand before God face to face and you will find out there were reasons why he didn’t stop that trigger, so that you will see the heinousness of evil and the majesty of love and good, managing to navigate yourself as a pilgrims progress to come to your celestial self.

1 John 3: 16: This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.

John 3:16: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

"The component of eternity does spell the possibility of explanation. Without eternity, the problem of evil remains totally unsolved. In fact, the question remains indefensible. Because God is able to restore life; eternity is able to bring ultimate justice. And we leave those two components in His hands."

Half-Empty or Half-Full? Straight or Crooked?

We have been refreshing the Border Agency website for weeks to book an appointment slot for my biometrics. For those who have experience with the UK situation, you will know the time, tediousness and expense that comes with the applications. As I was talking to my boss about this, he just mentioned, today you may be able to get on. I decided to do so. I got in! However, the paper with the ID required was left at home. Ying rushed home and managed to book the appointment. 

Friday came and we had planned to leave early and get there with 50 mins to spare as we were told to arrive 30 mins before the stipulated time. We arrived at the station to find that the train we wanted to take was cancelled. We spoke to the assistant and he directed us to the Overground service which needed an interchange. We ran so hard and we barely made it. After 5 minutes on board, the driver announced that there was a signal failure and that we were to remain there until he had further instructions which was indefinite. We sat there for 10 mins and decided to run for a bus. We ran again and missed the bus with the shorter route and there was not another one scheduled to arrive in the foreseeable future. We caught another bus. The driver happened to be really slow and we seemed to hit every red light and roadwork in London. There seemed to be people getting on and off at every single stop. 

We looked at the map and the stop seemed directly opposite the Border Agency. It ended up being past the Agency and behind 2 buildings in the opposite direction. We got off and started running as hard as we could. I could feel my legs and lungs giving way as dramatic as it sounds. We ran across the big road and tramlines as there was no pedestrian crossing in the vicinity as far as the eye can see.

I got there breathless and unable to speak. I just waved the appointment sheet at the guard and I made it through with only 5 mins to the stipulated time.

It's so easy sometimes to look at everything as a series of unfortunate events. Through various experiences, I have come to see stressful situations increasingly as opportunities to learn and put good principles to practice.

It is more than just adopting a positive attitude. In stressful situations, I realise that if you try to force calmness from the outside in, it probably will not stave the stress off for long periods of time. Also, this would probably mean that you fight fire and as a result, you would probably not be the type of person who would be recognise, be thankful and celebrate the good when it happens.

Normally when 'things go our way', we walk on without so much as a blink. Needless to say, stress is essentially what we feel when 'things are not under our control'. Trusting in ourselves as the only beings who can pull off the job/ make it/ do it right is really a heavy burden to bear. The struggle begins when you want to do away with the burden but do not feel secure enough to give it away/ have no one to give it away to. Burdens have a funny nature. They cannot disappear into thin air. They need to be offloaded- through a series of positive actions.

After I realised that stress comes because I can't control circumstances but want to, I knew that looking inward was not a solution. Sure, one could make oneself be positive but I for one, know I can't count on myself to be endlessly perceptive and receptive to life's curveballs. No, there's a more perfect Being I can count on. 

Looking back on it now, the graph of circumstances does not descend nor ascend. It curves. It would have been so easy to question WHY, grumble, SIGH, whine, COMPLAIN, be frustrated, IRRITATED, angry, WORRIED at the lower curves of things forgetting when the graph swings upwards. There is an additional unseen line above this which is constant and never-changing no matter how squiggly the line below gets. He is the Only one that can make our paths straight when we trust in Him and lean not on our own understanding.

Proverbs 3:5-6

  

Coming Home

On the journey back to Penang, the magnificent clouds hovering above the car stole my being. With John Pizzarelli's 'I Remember' playing in my ears,  I drifted away looking up at the sky.

Coming home brings bittersweet feelings. Happy to see old friends. At the same time,  circumstances and individuals change. Some relationships fall apart. Oh to cherish friendships that are not layered with insincere talk and snide comments. 

Coming home brings families together. Parents have such a big role to play in bridging gaps and helping children to find ways to communicate with their relatives. There's something so soothing about the idea of having a family reunion to come back to, no matter how many walks of life we come from. In the hustle and bustle, you find a common bond that binds us all together. Loyalty to our culture. Never give it up.

Coming home brings scar tissue. Physical for some. Emotional for most. Old wounds revisited. Old stories retold. They hurt but you know the worst is gone.

So we meet again after several years

Several years of separation

Moving on, moving around

Till we spend this time

Chasing the other's tail

-Boat Behind; Kings of Convenience