What Is Love?
THE WHAT OF LOVE continues to evade human understanding. Since Adam’s creation, humanity has sought to understand what love is. Eve’s birth evinced our inability to know love. For, how can a man possessing Love, Life, Truth, and emotions and joys unfathomable to our hearts… have a need? We marvel over our ancestor’s failure to obey the only God, however, the greater mystery is in Eve’s creation. It is possible that Love’s omnipotence was too heavy to carry alone and Adam needed help. The animals worked but not intelligently nor with any swagger, and to Adam it was mere monotony. The garden produced scents, foods, and colors we will experience only in Heaven, however, together, none of them excited, placated, or inspired Adam. (These are only theories.) Then, to the amazement of Adam, creation, and everyone who reads Genesis, the LORD said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” It appears the LORD made an inadequate thing we inquisitively wonder. It is more paradoxical, than oxymoronic that the LORD had to adjust His creation. We only need to remember what Job spoke of, yes, he says, “Lo, these are parts of His ways: but how little a portion is heard of Him? but the thunder of His power who can understand?” (Job 26). (Humility calms the inquisitive mind from prideful doubt.)
We marvel over our ancestor’s failure to obey the only God, however, the greater mystery is in Eve’s creation.
The Bible doesn’t explain or imply why mere flesh and blood couldn’t bear singularity. We can only theorize. An underappreciated theologian, Timothy Keller has the most persuasive theory, he says, “If we are made in God's image, and He is three persons—then at our fundamental core we are made for community.” This clarity is the truth that soothes the soreness of heart we all experience in life. We must be intentional, consistent, and sincere as we follow the advice found in 2 Timothy, “flee away from youthful passions, and pursue righteousness, faithfulness, love, and peace, in company with others who call on the Lord from a pure heart.”
What Love is, no singular man can ever begin to unveil. Zora Neale Hurston poetically once spoke upon friendship:
Friendship is a mysterious and ocean-bottom thing. Who can know the outer ranges of it? Perhaps no human being has ever explored its limits. Anyway, God must have thought well of it when He made it. Make the attempt if you want to, but you will find that trying to go through life without friendship, is like milking a bear to get cream for your morning coffee. It is a whole lot of trouble, and then not worth much after you get it.
Human relationships are centripetal to the human existence. And if we are to ever begin to lift the corner of this blanket mystery, then it must be done in unison. Our understanding and comprehension require order. In order to avoid misinterpretation I must remind you that life void of consistent, intimate friendship is antithetical to God’s will; for, how can the ear ever say to the mouth, “I don’t need you?” Again, we cannot know Love, live responsibly, or pursue the One who sits enthroned above the circle of the Earth— alone.
“It takes people a very long time, to learn a little. If you consider your own life, you’ll see how little you’ve learned and what it has costed you to learn whatever you’ve learned and then to face whatever it is you’ve learned and then to act on it… it takes a long time.”
