Love is… BLIND?
Excuse me Apostle Paul… but did you forget an attribute of Love….? Isn’t it also BLIND?
In this culture, we equate love to being blind, but I would like to challenge that notion. We have attributed a characteristic to love that is not consistent with who God is. God isn’t blind. So why should love be?
Being blind is an inability or failure to see clearly or completely. So I can deduce that if Love never fails, then love isn’t blind.
In fact, it is the exact opposite. Love is clear and intentional.
So if you find yourself ‘blinded’ by love… Check again…Because being blind is not one of its character attributes. If you are ‘blinded’ by the emotion you want to call love, then you may be choosing to be ignorant about the things that speak to the greater effect it is having on your heart, mind, body and soul. Love should give life, not take away from it. That’s not love. That’s emotional suicide at best.
True love cultivates a kind of mutual surrender that yields a sharpening of love within each vessel. 1 Corinthians 13 tells us that according to its true character, love will be patient, kind, protective, always trust, always hope, always perseveres and it rejoices in the truth.
It is when you have matured in love that you are able to love someone purely and truthfully – without the drama we have created because that’s what culture has taught us. Why? Because love does not envy nor boast. It isn’t proud, rude, self-seeking, easily angered, keep records of wrong nor does it delight in evil.
Drama does not equal love. We may have our dips and turns as we learn through love, but drama isn’t part of its job description. Because of love, we may have heated moments because love wants to protect from the eminent perils of this life. We may feel pain because love wants to be freed from the box of fantasy we have placed it in and wants to be released into its true identity. Love cannot be love in its true essence when we conform it to the forms that sit outside of who God is. God is love. So is our ‘expressed’ love an expression of who God is?
Love is truth. The truth that sets us free from the bondage of the weight and sin that so easily beset and distract us. So it’s that same love that fights to live when sin tries to drown out the beauty of what is supposed to be.
It is in that love that we learn how to know when the fantasy of love is suffocating true love because we romanticize it. Perhaps innocently, but nonetheless, draining life out of it and setting us up for failure. Which love never does.
It is in the maturity of love that we open ourselves up to God in a way that love can finally dwell within us and flow without us. Yes. Without us. Because when we give our lives over to love, it will manifest outwardly, without the need to consult with us.
It is because love isn’t blind that we can see someone’s flaws and not be blind sighted by them. It is in the maturity of love that we can see their flaws for what they are and love them just the same. Because that’s how God loves us.
But is also that maturity of love that teaches you to love someone through their emotional roller coaster, without having to take that ride with them. That’s their roller coaster. Not yours. Because it is that mature love that teaches you how to love as God’s conduit, not someone’s puppet show.
It is also that love that doesn’t judge, but rather, speaks truth, admonishes, encourages and challenges so that IT may have its perfect work in the heart of another.
So before we haphazardly continue to subscribe to the “love” this world wants to paint, go back to the One who is Love.
God exposes us, perhaps through the lens of what love is NOT, to what love truly is through Him.
Unfortunately, it’s not until our blindness has robbed us of propose, hope, dreams, vision and sometimes even the beauty of life, that we learn to value what true love is.
So no Mary J. Blige. Love isn’t blind. We are. But God can remove the scales if only we would invite the REAL love to finally stand up in us.