We are all here to learn to love
It’s a relevant question for anyone: “why are we here?” Part of the secret can be found in 2 concepts: love and parenting, with love being the most important. This article is not meant to express all reasons we are here, only God can cover that one.
Let’s start with some verses
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. — 1 John 4:7–10 ESV
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. — 1 Corinthians 13:13 ESV
The bible emphasizes love frequently. In fact, BibleGateway identifies 684 references to love. The part to focus on in the above verses is the association. It doesn’t say God is like love or has love or even expresses love…it says God is love (God = love). This doesn’t mean God is only love, but it does mean that love is only God. Thus by knowing love, you know God to some level and are connected.
What does “love” want?
Love is an interesting thing. If you think about it enough you will understand that on the outset it boils down to 2 main things, to love (give) and to be loved (receive). Love is a relationship.
People express this relationship all the time in various forms. We get pets, projects, friends, jobs, etc that try to supply us a place to have that relationship. It’s not hard to see that when we don’t receive love in return it becomes a jaded situation.
If you notice by people’s actions, we try to create situations that create the feedback loop of love. People even try create robots that mimic love in return either as an immediate or eventual result. People will even move apartments to create a situation where they can have a happy go lucky puppy that will give them attention and more importantly an aspect of love.
The challenge is that love is a very deep thing and requires 2 things, a certain intellectual level and choice.
Is it really love, if there is no choice?
If we build a robot and program it to attend to our every need, does it love us or is it just a tool? Have you ever loved someone, or thought you did, and they didn’t love you (maybe even like you)?
Love is a gift from one to another. If you make something that has no choice but to mimic loving you back, it is only an extension of your own love. It’s like looking in the mirror and complementing yourself. It has some merit, but if you remember love is a relationship so that mirror is only giving you a relationship with yourself.
The bottom line is that yes, a choice is required.
Home grown love
Since love requires a choice, that also means to some degree it cannot be created. Instead it must be grown. You can create a situation that is favorable, but it still isn’t a guarantee. That in and of itself is quite special.
So how would one go about growing love? Well, we know it requires a choice and because of that it requires making things with a certain level of intelligence especially to cover more than the shallow meaning of love. Creating intelligent beings is hard and getting them to understand even some basic concepts can be really challenging. Just ask any parent or guardian.
So what do parents do? They create environments and situations to encourage growing in the right way. At times anti-encouraging them from other paths. Quite often, parents will let their children learn lessons on their own they wish would be learned simply by being told. Parents also have to continually teach the same lessons over and over and over again,…at least while their sanity holds. Understanding and awareness comes from a person’s choice which is another reason why it’s so hard to help people understand at times.
Now take a step back. Regardless of your age, we are all children.
For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. — Galatians 3:26 KJV
Now take a step back further to space. What do we see? An environment of amazing complexity. Interactions with people, animals, and matter. When I look at the world I see an infinitely complex environment for learning. If we look out to the stars we find mechanics that show us how minuscule matter like atoms and molecules work. Patterns are repeated time and time again in multiple forms.
The point is from the outset we are all being parented in a universal sandbox. We all need love and need to express love to one another.
…You shall love your neighbor as yourself. — Matthew 22:37–39
The implications of this verse seem obvious, yet as children we have to be reminded again and again and again.
Love: Live for Others Verses Ego
