February is a month that is inspiring, the year has just begun, we are still enthusiastic about our goals and projects that we want to complete this year. Generally, our projects directly or indirectly are related to love. The month of February brings with it the opportunity to celebrate love in all its dimensions and it is a moment that renews our momentum to continue our year.
I say all of the above because love is the main starting point for life to be tinged with colors that give us the drive to move forward even when not all colors are to our liking. Of course, it is a figurative way of talking about life and love.
When we refer to love as an element that motivates us in life, we have to understand that love manifests itself in different directions.
First, the main source of “Love” is God [1 John 4:8 “…because God is love”] then we understand that the first direction in which love moves is from God to us [1 John 4:19 ” We love because he first loved us.”], so through it we feel loved by Him, recognized and embraced. Feeling in this condition makes us happy and encourages us to face the challenges of life.
Second, when we experience God’s “Love” we develop love for ourselves as a result, because now knowing God’s love, we have a pattern of how to love. We have all read Matthew 22:39 “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This adds to our life the acceptance of ourselves as we are. We learn to respect and take care of our own self both physically, spiritually and emotionally. This also results in us being in a much better condition and encouragement to face life with its challenges.
Third, when we have “Love” in those two dimensions that we mentioned above we are ready to share it with others and to respond to God as well [John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”] This allows us to show love for the people around us by learning to show “Love” in ways that our families, friends and other acquaintances can understand our expressions of love. I say this because not all of us experience love in the same way. If we analyze ourselves, we will realize that there are particular ways in which we recognize that another person loves us and sometimes it happens that someone tries to do something to show us love that might not feel significant to us. My recommendation is that you read the book “The Five Love Languages”, although it is focused on marriage, it is applicable in a general sense.
Finally, the result of going through life receiving and especially giving “Love” has its reward. The apostle Paul mentions in Galatians 6:7 “for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.” I am going to use an example of perfume, we love to hear someone tell us how delicious your perfume smells, the fragrance of the perfume moves freely in the environment and others can perceive it. This is also how love must be like the fragrance of the perfume that wherever we pass we leave the smell.
In conclusion, being loved, loving ourselves and loving others allows us to live life in harmony with God, with ourselves and with those around us. This will be very favorable to achieve many of our goals for this year since both we and those who are involved in the success of our objectives will be motivated to work together with enthusiasm to achieve that purpose.
God bless you!
Rafa