The power of love is limitless to those who have really experienced it. I am not someone who is prone to being “squishy’ about life nor am I frequently subject to a real bad case of “the feels.” When I write about the power of love I immediately recognize that there are those of us who grew up with Huey Lewis and Back to the Future and we could be a little distracted at this moment, but hang with me for a moment. The world needs to experience a power that we have seem to ignored due to fear, circumstances, and violence.
Love.
Not sentiment, but sacrificial. Not emotional, but revolutionary.
Love.
Something that changes the course of our life, challenges our previously held belief, redefines what we have considered to be universal truth.
Love.
I am convinced after recent events that this kind of soul moving, mind altering, habit reforming event is needed today. I have witnessed brainless racially drenched hatred spew from the mouths of young and old. It makes me want to scream at the top of lungs, but I know that I will never be able to shout them down. We will only succeed in seeing who can out scream the other having changed neither the heart, mind, or action of anyone. I can seek to have laws changed and make it so that people are punished. This too will accomplish something by way of an action, but it will not change the heart, mind, or soul.
Love.
This I know has changed me. It has been love that has brought about a caution to my tongue when I previously would have been quick to judge and condemn.
God’s Love.
You may say that love is not enough and now is the time for for tactics that show immediate results. I hear you and sympathize. Love is not easy and does not always bring about an immediate shift towards the goal. It is the long term play, but it is THE play. Only love can break us free of our not so subtle tendencies to want to destroy now another in an effort to prove that we are right, that we win in the end, and everyone else loses.
Jesus is Love.
Rev. Shawn J. Smith 