Presented by Lauren Stibgen

A culture of busyness can keep us from showing God’s love. How loosely do we hold this word? Like our notions about time, we also confuse love. A large part of our problem is we love everything and everyone. So, when you pause to think about how to show God’s love to others or to explain to them what God’s love feels like, maybe it gets lost in the emptiness we often attribute to this word.

We all love. When thinking about using the word love, my mind is filled with red and pink hearts, flowers, candies, and other visual or physical ways we see or experience love. I also think about how many times I have used the word love in the prior weeks. I love having coffee with my friends. I love the flowers I buy from a local farmstand. I love my husband. I love my dogs. I proclaim how much I love a friend’s dress. I love pizza. I loved our zoom gathering this month. I think you see my point.

We fly loosely with the word love, and if we are too busy to reflect on how special God’s love for us is, it will be very hard to show it to others. While everything I noted already can help us show God’s love to others, we need to go deeper into the meaning of what God wants us to show others.

God’s love is described as steadfast and enduring, sacrificial, unconditional, personal, and transformative. Perhaps you have heard the word Hesed. This is the deep conventual love in action that God gives to us as a promise.

There is nothing we can do to change God’s love for us. It never fades. We feel God’s sacrificial love in John 3:16.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).

We see his steadfast and enduring love for those that, even though they wander like Israel, God still loves them.

We see his transformational love in Jesus’ abundant healing ministry.

How can we show others this type of love? Not the pizza and coffee love. Not the “I love my dog” love. Not the “I love the way the color looks on you” love. I mean the “I want to share life with you” love—the proverbial “I would give to someone event if it hurt” love. The love that weeps with those who weep and rejoices when others rejoice.

When we are too busy, it is easy to give the glossy heart and flowers love. It is harder to focus on and think about how God wants us to show his love to others.