Addressing the crowd during one of the Sunday congregations on campus last semester, the pastor said — not necessarily in so many words — the following: “Couples! Look at your partner sitting next to you, and acknowledge that he or she is not the center of your life. He or she is only your companion as you make your way to God. Do not put your faith in the flesh, but in the divine instead.” Shockingly, couples followed suit, and acquiesced, eye to eye, that their partner was indeed not the center of their lives.
While this might not seem shocking to a number of us, I was dumbfounded. The argument was that flesh will fail us, but God never will. Therefore, if you put all your faith in your partner, you might be disappointed if you lose that person one day. Simply put, if God had wanted himself to be the center of our lives, he would not have ‘invented’ the wonderful feeling of love.
I don’t recall any passage of the Bible describing God as self-centered and requiring constant attention. I recall the encouragements of Jesus so we can better ourselves to be worthy of God. Jesus himself says, “Love your neighbor like yourself. This is the law and the essence of the law.” With this, Jesus offers us the key to redemption — to living to our full potential as creatures of choice rather than of instinct. But the key is to love others as much as ourselves. While most of us focus on going to church and on professing our love for God, we have forgotten the essence of it all: true love.
How many of us truly love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves? Unless you are Gandhi, you cannot pretend that you do. There is a simple, but not trivial, solution to this problem: the unconditional love for your partner as the center of your life. Paulo Coelho — world-renowned author of “The Alchemist” — says in his book “Brida” that “love is a practical experience of God.” Like many others, he has experienced the transcendental feeling of unconditional love: the kind of love that strips life of any meaning if it’s absent, and pushes you to be better every day in the eyes of the person you love. It motivates you to choose love rather than to be subject to the instinct of sex; it makes you realize that life’s significance stems from loving others.
I recently experienced such love, and when I no longer had it, I lost the taste for life. Today, however, I realize the lesson I learned. We are creatures of God, and our nobility lies in our ability to choose to do the right thing. This choice can only be motivated by loving others. Such love can be attained through the unconditional love of your partner as the center of your life. “To love another person is to see the face of God,” because it’s only then that we can feel what God’s love for us might be like — the kind of love that transcends this world and motivated Him to send his Son to save us.
Therefore, don’t be afraid to love. It’s difficult to find the one. It requires that you focus on what is really important in life and that you be patient. Show discernment, and love will be revealed to you. When you find it, do not let it go, for it is the way to God that many of us are looking for.
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