I Believe in Love

1 John 4:7,8
"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."

I do not believe the ultimate goal of our lives on earth is to end up in heaven. I don't care if I go to heaven; the existence of an afterlife should be irrelevant! Personally, I believe that the ultimate goal is to live your life on earth, and do so experiencing and giving the most love possible. I think that we should focus on changing things, making them better, giving people hope, and helping everyone laugh. The world is full of terrible things; famine, war, disease, poverty, murder, rape, and the list goes on and on. The only true way to overcome all of these horrible things is to love.

Love is the ultimate in human emotion. Love transcends all boundaries from simple fear to agonizing death. Love takes many unassuming forms, such as that between parents and children, mentors and students, one friend to another, and a lover and his beloved. From these bonds of love, are forged honor, respect, courage, dignity, loyalty, trust, honesty, patience and joy. When one ignores, denies, or doubts love, anger, fear, and pain are spawned. But again, love must champion all! It also gives us remorse and forgiveness! Love, perhaps, is the sole foundation upon which humans must build.

We must learn to love, embrace love, feel and respect the power it simultaneously has over and gives us. We should not fear this intense and beautiful and immensely strong thing, for it saves and protects us. We must be mindful of those around us, knowledgeable of the world of misery that incessantly swarms about us; not everyone recognizes and accepts love readily. We should be patient and kind to those who don't, and we should show them that, through love, one can be a happier, better person.

I firmly believe that a good human being will make it his duty to work to truly understand everything in its essence, using love as a guide on his quest, a source of strength, and an infallible safeguard. One should not love blindly, allowing others to harm and take advantage of him. But he should love with his eyes completely open to how ugly and terrible the world is around him. It is unwise to love so innocently and to give so easily, when not everyone is so open to this blatantly simple, yet somehow complexly elusive, fact. And by gaining this full comprehension, he may learn to love purely and without inhibition, regardless of how wrong everything else may be.

God is love, and to truly experience God, we need to love. God is in all of us, in the form of that simple emotion and action. Reaching God through solitude and vows of silence seem ridiculous to me. We are all God's children, and as a parent, he would expect us, as siblings, to not only get along, but to love one another as he loves us. God, just as many people describe love, is benevolent and self-sacrificing. It is pure and entirely good.

The purpose of my life is to love as God loves. To be kind. To be good. All this I do because God loves me, and I love God. It's only right to love all that God has given me; from my favorite tree in the park, to my family, from my abilities, to the stranger on the sidewalk. God has given me everything on this earth, and it is my job to love every single tiny aspect of it as much as I possibly can.

Do not be afraid of love.
Do not be afraid of God.