by Lucia Sweetland.

True love is divine

Sometimes we feel like we really don’t understand what love is at all – love which seems to cause so much elation, but also so much pain, often in a seemingly never ending cycle. Maybe it is easier to understand what love is by looking at what it is not. One way to do this is to look at some myths about love.

Myth #1: Love comes from human beings. Well, it seems to, but actually love comes from God. Love can come through human beings, but there is no human being on earth, no matter how saintly, that can generate love. Although the human part of us cannot generate love, it can serve as a vehicle of love – an open door. This is because we are more than human beings. As the saying goes, we are spiritual beings having a human experience. As children of God, our spiritual “beings” are made from love and actually are love and it is this love that we are in God that moves through us. But the human vehicle is not the driver. God is the driver. When we realize this, we can stop looking for love from other people, and learn to look to God within for love.

Myth #2: There is such a thing as unrequited love. When we love God in the other person, there is no such thing as unrequited love. This is because all love sent to God is received by God and sent back multiplied. Even if the person whom we love as God does not send us any love back – even if they send us hatred, if we have loved God in them as opposed to loving their human self (their personality, their appearance, etc), then we will receive love back – from God.

Myth #3: True love is unconditional. God does not love without conditions; God does not love evil – why would He? Evil is darkness and unreality. Even unreality can have a temporary existence and be magnified and multiplied by love. Why would anyone want to magnify and multiply evil by loving it? We are called only to love the God in another, never the evil. This is a condition. To love another unconditionally is to forego discerning what is of God and what is not. For example, unconditional love would leave the acts of dictators such as Adolf Hitler and Mao Zedong unchecked and unchallenged. For what part of unconditional love says, “Stop! This is wrong!”? That is not unconditional love; that is fiery love, love that defends and protects the innocent instead of allowing them to be heartlessly slaughtered, love that challenges another to let go of their darkness.God’s love is not unconditional, it is unconditioned, meaning that there are no conditions that can stop God’s love, but the love of God may manifest as soft and pink or it may be the fiery ruby red love that cleaves the real from the unreal. Yet, consider this: even what some people call “unconditional love” is not unconditional at all, for it places the condition upon loving that the one loving will refrain from discerning and exposing the unreality in another. This is a condition. Unconditioned love always expresses the type of love that is called for, the love that God within our hearts calls us to give.

We can save ourselves a lot of the pain we experience in attempting to depend on other people to supply us with love when we realize that we can never lose by loving God; we can only gain more love – which supplies us with us more to give! Truly, everything we're longing for is right there within our own hearts.

Beloved Father Mother God,

Help us to find Your Love within
And grow ever more Faithful and True
In Loving only You.

Amen.