29. Love begins from “seeing”.

We all want love. There is nothing that satisfies us more than feeling loved so we try to give love to others as well. For this reason, we often define love as “helping or serving others”. So parents help their children. People serve homeless people on the street. We help our friends. However, we also get frustrated because often we find it very difficult to genuinely love people, even while helping and serving them. Though we think we are “loving”, we also experience the absence of “love”. So we are tempted to “force” or “create” love, in our pursuit to be viewed as a “loving person”.

However, love is not something you create out of nowhere. Love is everywhere. Because Bible says God is love (1 John 4:16) and he is everywhere. But many people don’t seem to believe that.

Then why do we not “see” love? It is simple. Because we became “insensitive”. And what makes us insensitive to people is our “prejucie”. Our preconceived “opinion” about others, which has been formed and conditioned by our upbringing and expectations from others.

After one late meeting at our senior pastor’s house, I wanted to get Luyah ready for home as soon as possible. When I went upstairs to find her, he started acting very silly and became very hyperactive. I began to get agitated because I thought she was being uncoperative. To be honest, at that moment she wasn’t that lovely to me.

Somehow I managed to bring her down and got her ready. Then, Luyah turned around and told me, “Daddy, I just wanted you to laugh”. At that moment, I knew why she was acting all crazy. Instantly, she looked very “lovely”. Nothing changed about her. The only thing changed was the way I saw her. The moment I dropped my prejudice about her intention, I became “sensitive” to her need, then I “saw” love which was already there that I couldn’t see due to my preconceived opinion about her.

Love begins from “seeing”, not “serving”. We can serve people all day without a hint of love in our heart. We can easily “act” love out of responsibility or our sense of moral obligation. Every human beings are created in God’s image. They are “bearer” of love himself. The reason why we find it difficult to love someone is because our “opinion” is preventing us from “seeing” the person the way he/she is, a bearer of God himself.

So before you attempt to love someone, closely examine your preconceived idea about that person and ask yourself where it came from. As you become “aware” of your prejudice and begin to “drop” them, love will begin to arise in your heart and your act of love will naturally follow.