"It is probably impossible to love any human being simply too much. We may love him too much in proportion to our love for God; but it is the smallness of our love for God, not the greatness of our love for man, that constitutes the inordinacy."
– C. S. Lewis
Funny, that. Everything we have of value is limited—time, money, space, words, things—even generosity is practically limited—save for love.
Love is infinite; in its very existence it breeds itself.
No matter where we are or what we're doing, regardless how many people we know, we can just go on loving them and loving them right on into ridiculousness. What would be an destructive amount of love for a human being on its own is righted if our love for God is bigger than even our crazy love for that person. If God is the source and primary focus of our love, we can love infinitely, and far from being excessive or unhealthy, it is a form of growth and definitely a thing of beauty ("a joy forever").
If we understand what healthy love is, we cannot love man too much; only love God too little.
If the Creator of love is not the source of love, than our love is not love but something else entirely.
If the Inspiration of love is not beloved, than any earthly beloved is not truly loved.
Can we give unconditional love without first receiving it? Can we interpret something when we cannot even speak its native language? Can we know how to love others without learning to love the One who loved us first? Can any human this side of heaven know how to love the invisible God more than the visible earth, more than the visible man, more than the tangible self?
If love is the greatest, the most indestructible, the most infinite thing of all, the highest glory of human existence, how dare we reduce it to a mere emotion?
How do we understand and experience the amazing impossibility of loving God too much?
This is really good. I've been thinking about love recently, even started a blog post about it, kind of in this vein. I was thinking about how God is not of this world, and the world didn't recognize him, and how we aren't citizens of this world. How our love, the love that Christians have for each other can seem excessive to those whose whose citizenship is of this world. How they can't understand it, or reciprocate it, because they don't know God, who is the source and fountain of our love.
ReplyDeleteI really like the question: "If love is the greatest, the most indestructible, the most infinite thing of all, the highest glory of human existence, how dare we reduce it to a mere emotion?" That is so true. How do we dare to minimize it to merely a feeling?