October 3, 2014

LOVE (ON PURPOSE)

 pictured: sweet baby bestie turning 2 tomorrow!!!
thrive + love (on purpose).

yesterday I wrote about simplicity and basically how I'm continually learning what it means to love like Jesus loves us and the world.  today I was reading about how John used the word "agape" for love:
agape:  “an intelligent, purposeful attitude of esteem and devotion; a selfless, purposeful, outgoing attitude that desires to do good to the one loved”
 I used the opposite words to come up with a definition for hate:
hate: "ignorant, immature, purposeful attitude to put down and ignore, selfish, attitude to desire and do harm and see harm for the one hated"
when i was younger and even now I made/make it a point to never say "I hate insert terrible, rude, inconsiderate person, mean neighbor boy that wants you to play baseball when you're 5 and you scratch his picture in the yearbook" ... but after making this opposite-of-agape definition of hate... well maybe I've done my share of hating.  It's hard when people wrong you or your sweet loved ones.  But ignoring, avoiding, not wishing the best, not celebrating success,  clinging to your selfishness...will just create broken relationships, bitterness, envy, strife, malice...you know, not real good stuff. 

All the mushy feelings of love are fleeting but we can ask God to help us love.  We probably won't accidentally love the person we want to ignore or hate.  Thankfully Jesus is our example and standard for love.  To tangibly love people (on purpose).  We can ask him to help us love (on purpose)...because haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. (I couldn't resist adding a little T. Swift, just go with it.)

http://hannahcrain.blogspot.com/2014/10/thrive-31-day-series.html

day 3 love (on purpose)
from thrive. a 31 days series.
#write31days


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