ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

All you need is love, love. Love is all you need. Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love. All you need is love, all you need is love, All you need is love, love. Love is all you need. ( excerpt from the Chorus All you need is love- the Beatles ) It’s a fact, it’s the truth, its uncontestable, all we need is love, unattainable, misunderstood, misinterpreted, love. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant  or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful,  it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13 v 4-7 

I experienced love, I need love, I see love, I give love, I live love, I know love, do you?

GOD’S LOVE- THE STANDARD, THE UNCONDITIONAL There is no fear in this love, as his perfect love casts out fear. (1 John 4 v 18) A pure, peaceful, sacred form of love. Importantly, according to Peter “cast all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5 v 7), how easy is that? Love from God is undeserved kindness and mercy, just meditate a little on this. God had no need to, but dedicates this love to us, in that while we are/were sinners, while we are/were very unrighteous, Jesus came and died for us all. (Romans 5 v 8). Ponder a little more, he did not wait for us to promise, contract or do anything, he volunteered. We can’t earn this, its free. Yes, he acted first, without warranties, guarantees, or conditions; nothing therefore, nothing, nothing you can conceive- can separate us from this love. (Romans 8 v 39) So since he first loves us, it should be so easy for us to reciprocate, in fact its incumbent on us to love him, and then because of this overarching love, to love others too. ( 1 John 4 v 19) Try it, just try it, if you truly love God your only response will be to love others.

PARENTAL LOVE One of many earthly blessings, a sweet, demure and protective barrier, that gives without taking. A privilege to each, a gift to all.

ROMANTIC LOVE – The thrill, the rush, the energy, the bliss,………….the highs without lows, the yes and no nos, deranged and wild- fickle, transient and unrealistic.

LOVE FROM FRIENDSHIP I can depend on you for honesty laced with compassion……. I depend on you for objectivity when I am not……I can depend on you to listen to my every rattling and wrangling……. I make sacrifices for you, we inevitably argue- we disagree, we fight, then we quickly forgive. I scratch your back, and you scratch mine. No judgment, no name calling, no undue pressure, no quid pro quo. Unaffected by borders, distance or time.

SELF-LOVE The most obvious, and yet the most elusive…..finding the clean, clear and crystal space inside.  Its the pre-requisite, without which- you can never truly give your heart away, without which you can never really experience love at all, because you cant give what you don’t have. Look inside, search within, you will find it lying latently there. Careful though, as if feted too much you can become ‘drunk in love’.

THE TRUTH ABOUT LOVE Know its form and content and you will never go in search of it, know its form and content as the counterfeit is all-pervasive. After all ‘the heart wants what it wants’, with real love there is no need to abuse or numb, no need to be clingy or needy, no need to be overbearing or self-indulgent, no need for arrogance. Know love and you easily recognize and quickly discard the phonies, you can never suffer from delusions, then and only then will you find strength to let go and courage to break free.