Jesus' Love and Ours

As Love Month comes to an end, I think it's prudent to reflect on what kind of love we're celebrating and how we ought to celebrate it. Jesus said "A new commandment I give unto you [His disciples], That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." John 13:34

We are celebrating the kind of love Jesus has, and we celebrate it by expressing the same kind of love for others. That's why I've been blogging about what sort of love Jesus has and how He shows it. He is our exemplar. We are to follow His example, and the greatest example He gave us is His pattern of love. Jesus Christ was motivated almost entirely by His love of God and His love of others. We should be, too.

We should exercise Christlike love toward everyone, even those whom we don't understand or agree with. We should even exercise Christlike love toward those who require justice and judgement, when such judgement is ours to pass. We should try to be like our Savior in everything we do and say, and nearly everything He did and said was motivated by love. We should follow in His footsteps and motivate most, if not all, of our actions with love.

Jesus' Love - Resurrection

Shortly after Jesus Christ died for us, He rose again from the dead. His was the first resurrection, and because of His resurrection, we will all be resurrected as well. Some time after we die, our spirits and our bodies will be reunited, and our bodies won't just be healed up as good as new; they'll be perfect. Our bodies will be immortal, perfect, and fully intact. We won't have any injuries or deformities. We will no longer get sick or tired. We won't have any of the problems our mortal bodies currently have. It'll be great.

And another great thing about resurrection is that it's a free gift from Jesus Christ to everyone who has ever lived. Everyone who has ever had a body, even if only briefly, will get a perfect, fully restored, immortal body, which they can keep forever. That's part of what makes this gift such a great act of love. Jesus is giving everyone such a tremendous gift, just because He loves us, regardless of whether or not we've earned it or deserve it. It's not a payment for services rendered. It's not a reward for good behavior. It's purely a gift of love.

I'm thankful for the gift of resurrection. I know several people who will benefit greatly from receiving a perfect, immortal body. I may be one of them. It's a great gift! But I'm especially grateful that it's a free gift for everyone. Jesus must really love us to offer us all such an amazing gift and not ask for anything in return for it.

Jesus' Love - Sacrifice

John 15:13 reads "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Jesus did that for us. As the ultimate expression of His love for us, Jesus Christ accomplished the Atonement, in which He suffered tremendous pain, took upon Himself all our pains, afflictions, and sins,  and ultimately died for us. He loved us enough to sacrifice His safety, His well-being, and ultimately His life, for our sake. Granted, His suffering was temporary. His suffering ended with His death roughly three days after it began, and His death ended with His resurrection roughly three days after that. Yet, regardless of how long His suffering lasted, His pain was infinite. He endured all the pain that all mankind would experience over the collective courses of all our lives, and He suffered it all in one night. He exercised an immeasurable amount of dedication, self-sacrifice, and, of course, love. Only a being with infinite love would have willingly gone through something like that. And Jesus Christ did that for us. Jesus' great sacrifice for us proves that He loves all of us more than any of us could comprehend. His love for us is as great as His sacrifice was: infinite.

Jesus' Love - Advocacy

I'm stepping out of chronological order again with this one, but tonight, I want to blog about how Jesus shows His love for us by being our advocate at Final Judgment. We know that, after we die, we will be judged to determine whether we're worthy to live in God's presence, and we know that we've all done things that would make us unworthy. Yet, Jesus, who paid the price for our sins, asks God to forgive and forget them. Granted, neither God nor Jesus can ignore the demands of justice, but Jesus satisfied those demands, and He advocates for our punishment to be waived on account of His. Jesus paid a great price to make it possible for us to live in God's Kingdom, and He does everything He can to help make sure we get there.

Jesus' Love - Other Miracles

Besides healing, Jesus performed many other miracles, though in some cases, it might be tricky to figure out how those miracles are manifestations of Jesus' love. For example, Jesus turning water into wine could arguably an act of love toward those who received the wine or perhaps toward His mother, Mary, since she asked Him to help, and feeding the multitudes loaves and fishes miraculously was certainly an expression of love for the multitudes, but how was Jesus showing His love for others in walking on water or cursing the fig tree? Maybe Jesus walking on water was a sign of love for Peter, since it gave him an opportunity to test his faith, learn a lesson about faith, and have a once-in-a-lifetime experience. As for the fig tree, I'm almost at a loss. Cursing the fig tree didn't really help anyone directly, but maybe it helps us by forming a powerful object lesson against the danger of hypocrisy? That's a bit of a stretch. Some miracles don't really fit the mold of manifestations of divine love.

But maybe that's okay. People, including Jesus, are allowed to do things just because they want to. Not every act a perform performs has to be an act of love for someone else. Maybe Jesus walking on water was just a semi-practical way to get onto the boat after it had already launched. Maybe Jesus cursed the fig tree just because He felt like it. As long as doing so didn't hurt anyone, I don't see anything wrong with it. Granted, it wasn't His fig tree. One can assume that the fig tree belonged to someone else, who now has one fewer productive fig trees. Then again, that fig tree wasn't producing figs anyway, so maybe there was no actual loss.

But regardless of whether certain miracles were acts of love or not, other miracles certainly were. Jesus showed His love for us by granting us the miracles of creation and of deliverance from evil, He continues to show His love for us by healing our souls and hearing our prayers, and I'm sure we can expect more loving miracles from Him in the future. Jesus is a God of miracles and a God of love. Even if a few of His miracles weren't expressions of love, I'm willing to bet that most of them are.

Jesus' Love - Healing

Throughout Jesus' mortal ministry, Jesus performed countless miracles. Of these miracles, I believe that most of them were healings, healing specific individuals of specific ailments. He healed the sick, cured blindness and diseases, including leprosy, restored mobility to the lame, cast out devils, and even raised the dead. These were all very clear and direct manifestations of Jesus' love for those people.

Yet, Jesus' healing power reaches far beyond the limits of mortal bodies and temporal lifespans. Long before He was born, and long after He died, Jesus continued to heal people, spiritually, if not also physically. I suspect that all of us have been healed by Jesus in some way or another, if only by virtue of the fact that He forgives sins.

Jesus is the Great Healer, healing people physically, spiritually, and even sometimes mentally and emotionally, and in all periods of time. And I believe that the reason Jesus heals so many people of so many afflictions is because He loves us and wants us to be happy and live well. Sometimes, there are obstacles to our happiness, and sometimes, Jesus heals us of them.

Granted, not all afflictions get healed in this life, and that it not evidence of a lack of love on Jesus' part. Quite the opposite. Jesus loves us enough to do what's best for us, eternally, even if doing so hurts us and him in the interim. Jesus wants to heal us from everything that afflicts us, but there are lessons that need to be learned, and God often allows afflictions to persist until after those lessons are learned. Sometimes, one of those lessons is patience, particularly patient endurance of affliction. Rest assured that Jesus, who felt all our pain and suffering, isn't any happier about allowing suffering to persist than we are. Jesus wants to heal us.

Thankfully, in certain ways, He often can. Jesus continues to heal wounded hearts and souls, minds and bodies, as our various circumstances allow. Healing us (eventually) of our various infirmities must be one of His greatest joys, and it's one of the many ways in which He shows His love for us.

Jesus' Love - Listening

I'm stepping out of chronological order for this one, partly because I'm not sure where to put it, but Jesus Christ also shows His love for us by listening to us. Whenever we want to pray, He's willing to listen. I find it comforting that we always have Someone up there we can talk to, about anything. Because of that, we never need to feel alone or unheard. Jesus is always there to listen to us, no matter what we have to say. I'm glad that Jesus listens to us, and I also love that regular people also take the time to lovingly listen to others.

Jesus' Love - Teaching

After His birth, probably the earliest recording we have about Jesus' life was when he was found teaching in the temple at 12 years old. In fact, Jesus spent much of His adult life teaching, usually through parables. He taught us Gospel principles, commandments, and some doctrine. Jesus' teachings help us by showing us what paths to follow, what pitfalls to avoid, and how we can return to live with our Heavenly Father in ultimate happiness. Jesus' teachings are manifestations of His love because they show that He cares about our welfare. His teachings show that He cares what path we follow, which means He cares where we end up, which shows that He wants us to be happy. If that's not love, what is?

I'm glad Jesus loved us enough to not only open the way for us, but to also teach us what the right way is. Because He loves us, Jesus opened the way for us, and also because He loves us, He also taught us the way.

Jesus' Love - Mortality

I think I've gone on about Jesus' premortal life love enough, but before I go into what Jesus did for us during His mortal life, I want to take just a moment to consider how Jesus expressed His love for us by taking on a mortal life in the first place.

Mortality is no picnic, as Jesus had learned by then. He had watched countless generations live, suffer, and die, and He knew that He would suffer the same fate. He knew that He would experience the same sorts of afflictions every mortal being experiences just as part of His mortal life, not even counting the Atonement. He chose to experience the same trials and afflictions we experience, not just because He needed a physical body (as we all do), but because we needed Him. Subjecting Himself to a mortal experience was a small part of the great price Jesus paid for our sake.

And, as we will discuss over the next few days, He spent His mortal life expressing myriad manifestations of love. Jesus did many wonderful and important things for us during His mortal life, but the first of those things was choosing to experience mortality in the first place.

Jesus' Love - Judgment

After the premortal council, we enter a period of time we can collectively call Old Testament Times, a time period from the creation of the world to a short while before the birth of Christ. During this time, Jesus, then known by the name Jehovah, acted as "the God of the Old Testament." He was the One to whom the ancient prophets prayed. He was the One who delivered the Children of Israel out of Egypt. And He was the One who led His people, both physically and spiritually, to the Promised Land. During this time, Jesus was known for His acts of judgment against the wicked and salvation for the righteous. He issued commandments, caused  and saved people from natural and supernatural disasters, and caused several plagues and miracles among mortals.

And all of these acts were done out of love. When we think of just the plagues and the curses and the destruction in the Old Testament, it's easy to imagine Jesus as an angry, vengeful God, yet that's not the kind of God He is. Jesus is just and fair and perhaps a bit frustrated at times, but as far as I can tell, he always tries to be kind and generous and merciful, to the extent that we allow Him to be. He cannot deny the demands of justice. He must be just. But He gives us as many warnings and second chances as are good for us. He sends us prophets to teach us how to be righteous and why righteousness is so important, then He hopes and prays that we listen so His judgments can reward us with blessings instead of punishing us with curses. And even when He curses us, He does so out of love, either to encourage us to repent so He can bless us or, in the case of fatal curses, to forestall us from getting ourselves into even worse trouble and hurting others along the way.

So, Jesus' judgments are a manifestation of His love. Both by blessing us and by cursing us, Jesus encourages us to follow the path that leads to happiness. I am grateful for the blessings and the curses that He has placed in my life and for the lessons they all taught me. I'm glad that I am on the path of happiness, and I'm grateful for all the nudging and prodding Jesus did to help me get here.

Jesus' Love - Victory

When I blogged about how Jesus showed His love for us by volunteering to be our Savior, I mentioned that Lucifer also volunteered. However, Lucifer didn't stop at just volunteering to be our Savior; he fought for that honor. In what was at least an argument, if not an all out war, Lucifer turned a third part of the hosts of heaven against the rest of the heavenly host and was cast down, with his followers, to Earth. During that fight, Jesus and other valiant spirits stood with us, and we with them, and together, we secured the victory.

Yet, the fight wasn't over yet, and it still isn't. For all of human history, Lucifer (now called Satan or one of any number of terms for him) has been fighting against every human being who has ever lived, doing his darnedest to lead us to destruction. Every day, we have to fight against the adversary and his followers, reenacting, or rather continuing, a conflict that started before the first human being was born.

And, just as before, Jesus and other valiant spirits (both with and without bodies) stand with us, helping us secure victory after victory until the war is finally won. Granted, we won't win all battles, but with Jesus' help, we can win the war. Jesus' love is manifest in how He continues to stand by us, regardless of how many times we falter, and in how He blesses us with the guidance and strength we need to overcome the adversary.

I am eternally grateful for Jesus' help in giving me all the strength and guidance I need to win this war for my soul and others', and I'm especially grateful for the assurance that as long as we stand by Him as He stands by us, we will, together, secure the ultimate victory.

Jesus' Love - Creation

In addition to volunteering to be our Savior, Jesus Christ also showed His love for us by creating the world for us. That's actually a large part of the reason I decided to start before Jesus' birth. Yesterday, my Mom and I went to a beach to hike and to look at the ocean, and basically just to appreciate its beauty. There's a lot of beauty in the natural world, from the big things like oceans and mountains to little things like flowers and drops of dew. Jesus made the world functional so we can actually live here, but He also made it beautiful enough that we can enjoy living here. I love watching animals, looking at trees, hearing water, and listening to the wind. It's magical, and it shows that Jesus loved us enough to put a great deal of beauty in this world He created for us.

Jesus' Love - Volunteering

As part of Love Month, I want to blog about the many ways in which Jesus showed His love for us. When I first got this idea, I thought I'd start at the beginning: Jesus' birth. But then I realized that that wasn't actually the beginning of Jesus' life, and Jesus showed His love for us in several ways, even before He was born. So today, I want to start at the very beginning, or at least, the earliest point in time that we know about: the council in heaven.

At this council, God explained His Plan of Salvation, including our need for a Savior, and He asked for a volunteer. Jesus showed His love for us by volunteering to be our Savior. Now, He had never experienced a mortal life before. None of us had. We were all venturing into new and unexplored territory here, and I imagine that may of us were at least a little nervous. It must have been such a relief to know that Jesus, our remarkable Older Brother, had volunteered to venture out into the unknown with us, to guide us and to help us get through it, even if He only scarcely knew what was going to happen Himself. His faith in the Father was unshakable, and our faith in Him must have been a great comfort to us who were about to embark on an exhilarating, if intimidating, journey.

Granted, Jesus wasn't the only volunteer. Lucifer also volunteered to be our Savior. The trouble was that his plan conflicted with God's plan and would have essentially reduced us to puppets while raising Lucifer to a level of glory equal, or nearly equal, to God. Lucifer didn't volunteer to help us because he loved us. He volunteered to control us because he loved himself. He wasn't trying to help us; he was trying to help himself.

Jesus, on the other hand, didn't want to take God's glory. He just wanted to help. He wanted to help God and help us make it through this. This single, selfless act set Him on a path toward performing several other selfless acts, countless even, all motivated by His love for our Heavenly Father and for us. Over the next several days, I plan to explore the various ways in which Jesus showed His love for us, and I thought it would make sense to start with the moment at which He first volunteered to do so.

How Love Drives Out Hate

Dr Martin Luther King Jr once said "Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." I kind of wonder how. How does love drive out hate? That probably depends on where the hate is located.

If the hate is in ourselves (i.e. if we hate someone or something), then cultivating love can drive out that hatred the same way warmth drives out the cold. Cold is the absence and antithesis of warmth. Simply by existing, warmth reduces the amount of cold in the area. Similarly, hatred is, if not the absence, at least the antithesis of love. Simply by existing inside us, love can help reduce the amount of hate in us.

Reducing the amount of hate in others seems to be a longer and more complex process, but I suppose the same principle applies. Just as one can warm up a glass of water by putting it in a warm room, we can reduce the amount of hatred in others by giving them a loving environment. At least, one can hope that would work. It would be a long process, hindered by the amount of time spent in less loving environments, but I can imagine love passing from one person to another the same way warmth does, especially since a lot of hatred is rooted in a lack of feeling loved.

I hope that we can find it in ourselves to feel and express love toward ourselves and others, even in the face of hatred. Answering hatred with more hatred may feel better in the moment, but it doesn't actually reduce the amount of hatred in the world. Only love can do that. I hope that I can be strong enough to love others, even if they hate me, and that I can show them, by example, that love can be strong enough to drive out hatred.

Live to Love

In addition to loving to live, one can also live to love, and arguably, it's one of the best ways to live. There is a great benefit to loving and serving others, and not only benefits for those being served. Those who serve others are also blessed as a result of their loving service, as are those who witness the act of service. Love spreads. The more love we show for others, the more love there will be in the world. That's part of the reason why it's a good idea to live to love others. It's not just one of the great commandments. Loving others is also a good way to live.

Love to Live

Mortal life can be kinda rough sometimes. It's full of trials, hardships, and unfairness. For a lot of people, every day is a struggle to stay alive, and some people sometimes wonder whether it's worth the struggle. Yet, there is also great beauty in life. There is goodness in the world and in its people. Life is an adventure, and while adventures can be long, difficult, and painful, the rewards are worth our endurance. I haven't always loved the whole concept of the mortal experience, but right now I can gladly say that I love life. I may not love every aspect of life, but I love life itself, and I think that's what God would want. Life is a gift. It's meant to be enjoyed, not just endured. Life can be very hard sometimes, but I know that it's still possible and important to love it.

To "Love" And To "Embrace"

Just now, I hugged my mother, and I thought how it wasn't just a hug; it was an embrace. To "embrace" literally means to "Hold (someone) closely in one's arms, especially as a sign of affection," which is what I was doing, but it also means to "Accept or support (a belief, theory, or change) willingly and enthusiastically" (source), which I was also doing. I accept and support my mother willingly and enthusiastically, at least some of the time. I should support her more often, and I should do it more willingly and enthusiastically, but I hope that she can feel the love I have for her in the form of my acceptance and support of her.

Yet, I'm not fully sure we should love everyone that way. There are many people who would love to have their beliefs and their behaviors, their ideologies and their lifestyles, accepted and supported by everyone excitedly and enthusiastically (if not willingly). Yet, not every belief and ideology should be accepted. Not every behavior and lifestyle should be supported. We should love everyone, but that doesn't always mean accepting and supporting them. If someone's beliefs or behaviors are destructive to themselves or others, it may be more loving to urge them to change.

Yet, there are other beliefs, behaviors, ideologies, and lifestyles that are well worth accepting and supporting, willingly and enthusiastically. We need to have a discerning mind to determine what to embrace and what not to embrace.

But whether we embrace a person's ideologies and lifestyle or not, I think that we can and should still embrace them. We can accept who they are and/or support their growth without necessarily embracing all their beliefs and behaviors. We might have to be careful to not send the wrong messages with our acceptance of them and rejection of their actions, but I think it's important to show that we love them, even if we don't love everything they do. Many people in the world preach tolerance, and we should tolerate most people and most things, but that doesn't mean we should tolerate, let alone embrace, anything and everything. Some behaviors and ideologies are intolerable and should not be embraced, regardless of how we feel about and act toward the people who practice them.

It's a fine line to tread, and I pity those who have to tread it often, but it's an important distinction to make. We should love everyone, but that love may not always take the form of acceptance and support. We should love everyone, but we should not embrace everything.

Love Prevents Sins

We've heard it said that charity, the pure love of Christ, "covers" a multitude of sins, but I think it may be more accurate to say that love prevents a multitude of sins. The more we love others, the less tempted we are to sin against them, and the same thing goes with God; the more we love Him, the less we are tempted to sin against Him. Granted, the temptation will still be there, but we're less likely to sin against our loved ones than against random strangers, specifically because we love them. When we love people, we don't want to hurt them. Sin hurts. So, when we strongly love others, we won't want to sin against them.

Love Your Enemies

“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”—Matthew 5:44

The commandment to "Love your enemies" is a difficult one, but the rest of the verse breaks it down into increasingly easier steps.

Blessing them that curse us is almost as abstract as loving them, but I interpret it more specifically as wishing them well. It takes an awful lot of charity to wish well on those who wish us ill, but it may help to remember that that Savior felt all the pain experienced by everyone, even the jerks. If we wish for bad things to happen to others, we should remember that the Savior will feel those bad things, too. Perhaps we had better wish for good things to happen to them, for the Savior's sake, if no one else's.

Doing good for those that hate us is fairly doable, partly because it's a matter of action, not attitude. We can do good for them that hate us, even if we also hate them. We don't need to love anyone to perform the action of serving someone. We could merely go through the motions, performing charity, even if we don't feel charity for them. Of course, the goal is to come to feel charity for others, but we can start by merely acting like we do.

And if nothing else, we can pray for them. They don't even necessarily have to be charitable prayers. We can pray for hearts to be softened and changed. We can pray for others to see the errors of their ways. We can pray that others will feel impressed to repent. Granted, we should be careful not to be hypocrites. It's not fair to pray for others to repent and change if we're not striving to repent and change as well. We should pray for the Lord to help us soften our hearts and forgive others as well as praying for the Lord to help others soften their hearts and repent.

We should love our enemies. If we can't bring ourselves to do that, maybe we can still bring ourselves to bless them, if only for Jesus sake. If we can't bring ourselves to bless them, we might be able to do good for them. And if we can't do good for them, perhaps because of circumstances outside of our control, we can at least pray for them, or at least about them. Merely praying for others is a bar low enough that just about anyone can reach it. Of course, we should aim higher than that, up to and including loving our enemies, but if we're not quite there yet, don't worry. This commandment has multiple tiers. We can start wherever we are and strive to develop greater charity for our enemies from there.

Love Heals

Earlier today, I received a painful, but ultimately minor injury. As soon as it was known that I had an injury, my family dropped what they were doing to help me, mostly by fetching medical supplies, giving me sound advice, offering my comfort, and offering to take me to the hospital, if needed. Thankfully, I didn't have to go to the hospital. It was just a shallow, albeit large and painful, cut. We washed it, put some antibiotic cream and a bandage on it, and mostly left it at that. It should heal completely within a few days.

What struck me most about this incident was that my family loves me enough to care for me when I need it. They showed their love by putting their own work on hold in order to help me. I hope that I would be just as willing to help them. They showed their love for me by helping me, and thanks partly to that help, I expect to heal well. I am very thankful to my family for being there for me when I needed them, and I hope that I'm always willing to be there for them when they need me. Our love for each other can heal each other in more ways than one, and I'm grateful that I was able to call on that healing today.

Counterfeit Love

When I blogged about the wrong kinds of love last night, I briefly thought about what kinds of love are the wrong ones, and lust is certainly very high on the list of the worst of the wrong kinds of love. Drawing some strong contrasts between lust and love, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland once said the following:

Why is lust such a deadly sin? Well, in addition to the completely Spirit-destroying impact it has upon our souls, I think it is a sin because it defiles the highest and holiest relationship God gives us in mortality—the love that a man and a woman have for each other and the desire that couple has to bring children into a family intended to be forever. 

Someone said once that true love must include the idea of permanence. True love endures. But lust changes as quickly as it can turn a pornographic page or glance at yet another potential object for gratification walking by, male or female. 

True love we are absolutely giddy about—as I am about Sister Holland; we shout it from the housetops. But lust is characterized by shame and stealth and is almost pathologically clandestine—the later and darker the hour the better, with a double-bolted door just in case. 

Love makes us instinctively reach out to God and other people. Lust, on the other hand, is anything but godly and celebrates self-indulgence. 

Love comes with open hands and open heart; lust comes with only an open appetite.

He then said that "These are just some of the reasons that prostituting the true meaning of love—either with imagination or another person—is so destructive." I'm sure there are others, but these will suffice. Just about everything that is good about love is twisted and subverted in lust.

I think that's a large part of the reason so many Christians are so strongly against homosexuality. They focus on the "sexuality" part and assume that those feelings of attraction are mostly motivated by lust rather than genuine love. Yet, I know a homosexual person who is one of the most genuinely loving people I know, and we all know that heterosexuals can be terribly susceptible to the vice of lust. As far as I can tell, gay people are no more lustful, on average, than the general population. Lots of people are guilty of the sin of lust, not just gay people, and I haven't seen any solid evidence that gay men are more lust-driven than any other men.

No matter who we are or to whom we're attracted, we all need to be careful to ensure that our desire to be around people and spend time with them is motivated by genuine love, not some twisted counterfeit. Those who don't feel sexual attraction may think that they're safe from experiencing counterfeit love, but they're not. Love has many counterfeits. Though lust is likely the most egregious of love's counterfeits, it's not the only one. When we think we love someone, we need to consider whether we truly love them as human beings or whether we merely like them, or whether we're just hoping to get something out of them.

People can "love" other people in many different, bad ways and for many different, bad reasons. If we want strong, positive relationships, we need to make sure that we love others in the right ways and for the right reasons.

Too Much Love?

Love is a virtue. In fact, Mormon called charity, the pure love of God, the greatest of all virtues. Yet, most, if not all virtues, when taken to an extreme, can become a vice. So I wonder, if briefly, if it's possible to feel and/or express too much love.

The reason I wonder this only briefly is that God is said to have an infinite amount of love. Clearly, no amount of love can ever be "too much."

Yet, it's not unheard of for someone to love someone else "too much." Since we know that the amount of love isn't the actual problem, what is?

I think that, in the case of someone having "too much love," the actual problem is that they have the wrong kind of love. For example, someone could love someone else enough to want to protect them, but end up being overprotective, stifling their growth.

I think that we should try to follow God's example, not just in how much love we try to have for ourselves and others, nut also in how we express that love. Granted, God expresses His love in different ways for different people at different times, and He probably uses His infinite wisdom to know what sort of love to express at what times, but we can still try to follow His example using a combination of the best of our wisdom and as much inspiration as we can get.

God knows what kind of love we need, and He knows what kind of love we need to show to best help others. God is our perfect exemplar. By following His example, we can begin to figure out what kind of love to show at what times. But we can already be perfectly certain that there is no such thing as too much love.

Hearts Knit Together in Unity and in Love

While I was on my mission, our mission scripture was Mosiah 18:21:

And he commanded them that there should be no contention one with another, but that they should look forward with one eye, having one faith and one baptism, having their hearts knit together in unity and in love one towards another.

I think that scripture is especially pertinent now, when there seems to be a good deal of contention and division. I think it's important that we find common ground, "look forward with one eye," and work together to bring about positive change.

I think we can agree that violence is generally bad, that innocent people shouldn't be killed or attacked or have their businesses vandalized, and that those who do harmful things should be held accountable. We can agree that our "criminal justice system" should be just, and not criminal. We can agree that black lives matter. We can agree that all lives matter. And we can agree that it's well past time for the pain and the violence and the discrimination and the hatred to stop.

We are all brothers and sisters. We are all family, despite any genetic, cultural, or personal differences. That which unites us as children of God should be stronger than that which divides us along racial or political lines. We should have "[our] hearts knit together in unity and in love one towards another," and while there will always be disagreements, "there should be no contention" among us.

Of course, this goal is easier stated than achieved, but if we choose to love each other as brothers and sisters instead of hating each other as racists and rioters, then that will be a big step toward "having [our] hearts knit together in unity and in love" and toward working together to bringing about the changes we can agree need to be made.

Showing Love

There are many ways to communicate, beyond just using words. In the writing community, there's an oft-repeated bit of advice: Show, don't tell. It means that we should, as much as possible, demonstrate the information that we mean to convey, instead of just stating the information. It's one thing to say that Sherlock Holmes is a brilliant detective, but it's much better to show him observing clues, putting pieces together, asking the right questions, and following his train of thought. We know he's clever, not because the author said he is, but because we saw him doing something clever.

Similarly, we should try to show our love and not just state that it exists. As Elder David A. Bednar once said, "We should remember that saying 'I love you' is only a beginning. We need to say it, we need to mean it, and most importantly we need consistently to show it. We need to both express and demonstrate love."

So, how can we show love for the people whom we love? We can try to spend quality time with them, if that's at all possible. We can communicate with them and show real interest in them. We can show concern for their well-being and do things to try to lift their spirits and make them happy.

Of course, the ways in which we show love for other people can be as different as the people themselves. For some people, showing love may mean getting close to them. For others, it may mean giving them their space. And the best way to chow love for someone may change over time. One day, a person may need guidance and direction, and another day, they may need to be trusted to make good decisions on their own. The best advice I can give in general is to pay attention to other people and their spiritual and emotional needs and to try to meet those needs. Granted, that's easier said than done, and it's not anyone's job to meet the emotional needs of others, but I think that the more you love someone, the more you'll want to help them, and the more genuinely you want to help them, the more you'll want to try to understand what they individually need.

As Elder Bednar said, "We need to both express and demonstrate [our] love." It's good to tell others that we love them. We should do that more often. But we should also look for ways to show our love for them. I'm going to try to find ways to show my loved ones that I love them. I hope you do the same.

Love and Seek God

In a General Conference talk entitled The Love of God, then President Dieter F. Uchtdorf said that we need to love God, "For what we love determines what we seek. What we seek determines what we think and do. What we think and do determines who we are—and who we will become."

If we want to be and become like God, we need to think and do the things that will lead us to being and becoming like Him. Thinking about the Gospel and keeping the commandments are easier to do when we have an internal desire to seek God. And seeking God is practically automatic to those who love Him.

The more we love God, the easier it'll be to seek Him through thinking and doing the things that help us be and become like Him. So, let us nourish our love for God and use it to motivate us to become better people. In this fallen and disorienting world, it can be difficult to seek God, but that goal becomes easier as we increase our love for Him. 

The Importance of Self-Love

I hope you don't mind if I speak a little frankly this time.

I used to hate myself. I hated myself for having a particular flaw and for being too weak and stupid to overcome it. My hatred of myself was so strong that it almost destroyed me.

But I don't hate myself now. I forgave myself for being flawed, and instead, I began to love myself, warts and all. And since I began to love myself instead of hating myself, I've noticed that I've made measurable strides toward overcoming my flaw.

I now believe that my self-hatred had been self-reinforcing. Hating myself and fighting against myself only fostered destruction, not growth. My bruises couldn't heal because I kept beating myself up for having them. When I stopped beating myself up, I started beating my flaw instead.

There is a significant amount of power in self-forgiveness and self-love. Self-love can be encouraging and ennobling. Someone who loves themselves in a positive way can be their own role-model, their own cheerleader, and their own biggest fan. They can encourage themselves to live up to their best selves, building themselves up instead of tearing themselves down.

I've been tearing myself down for far too long. It wasn't healthy, it wasn't helping, and it wasn't what God wanted me to do. God has commanded us to forgive everyone and love everyone. That includes forgiving and loving ourselves. And now I think I know why. Self-forgiveness and self-love help us let go of that which is holding us back and instead reach toward what we can become.

I love myself. I love that which is good in me, and through positive reinforcement, I encourage that good to grow.

I strongly encourage everyone to try this. Find something you love about yourself and focus on loving yourself for having that trait. And if you can't think of something you love about yourself (I get that. I've been there.), ask someone who loves you why they love you and focus on that. And if you don't know anyone who loves you, ask God why He loves you. I promise that He does love you and that He has reasons for loving you beside just the fact that you're His kid. Everyone has traits that they can and should love about themselves and should love themselves for, and I think we'd all be happier if we did.

The Answer is Love

The world (mostly the United States, but also elsewhere, or so I've heard) is going through a rough time right now. I both do and don't want to blog about it, so I'll let it suffice to say that the world could use a lot more love. People should love each other enough to not hurt each other. People should love each other enough to forgive those who have hurt them. People should spread love instead of hate.

And that includes me.

I hate what's going on right now for multiple reasons, but I shouldn't focus on that. I should focus on love. I love that I live in a free nation where people can, for the most part, speak their minds and share their thoughts freely. I love that there are many good people in the world who are trying to help fix our problems. I love that I can reasonably have hope that things will eventually get better.

But mostly, I love people, and I try to love all people, regardless of who they are or where they come from, regardless of what they look like or what they've done. Every human being who has ever lived or will ever live is a son or daughter of God. We're all family, and I think we should all try to love each other like family.

Anyhow, that's my two cents about it. I could go into greater detail, but I don't want to, and frankly, I'm probably not qualified to talk about it. I'll leave it to the experts and those with personal experience. I just want to share my opinion that, with this problem, as with most (if not all) others, the answer is love. We don't need more hate. We don't need more violence. We need more love.

Murder Motivated by Love

I just killed a spider. I probably didn't have to. I could have caught it, let it loose outside, and let it live. If I had been the one who found it, that's probably what I would have done. But I didn't. I killed the spider, even though I didn't have to. Essentially, I murdered the spider.

Yet, I killed the spider out of love, not for the spider, but for my sister. She was the one who found the spider. She fears and/or hates spiders (I'm not sure which term she prefers), so I made certain that that particular spider could never bother her, or anyone else, ever again.

Is it wrong to kill a living creature when you don't have to? Almost certainly. Is it good to act in accordance to one's brotherly love of one's family? Also yes. So, then, what am I to make of my decision to kill a creature for my sister's sake? I don't know.

Thankfully, that act was probably not significant enough to matter much, in the grand scheme of things. Still, I'm glad I'm not the one who needs to judge my actions. I have no idea how to adjudicate the proper reward or punishment for someone who kills a spider as motivated by brotherly love.

Motivated by Love

I help others. My job, as a writing tutor, is to help my fellow students become better writers. My job as a son and a brother is to help my family. My callings in the church (back before quarantine when we actually attended church) can be imaginatively interpreted as helping others in various ways, either by helping them learn the gospel or by helping them organize the work of keeping the church building clean.

I help others largely out of a sense of obligation. It is my moral obligation to accept and fulfill church callings. It's my familial obligation to serve my family. And it's my vocational obligation to work at the Writing Center. I do these things partly because I have to, or at least because I'm supposed to. Yet, I hope that that isn't my only motivation. I hope that I help others at least partly out of love for those whom I'm obligated to help.

I hope that my actions are at least partially motivated by love. I should help people because I want to help them, not just because it's my job as a family member, church member, or writing tutor. I should help people just for the joy of helping them, and not just to feel the sensation of joy. I should help people because I love them enough to want to help them, whether I get anything out of helping them or not.

I don't know if I'm fully there yet. Yes, I love my family, and the opportunity to help people is the main reason I love my job, but I feel like I could do better to be motivated by love in my church callings and in my day-to-day life. In theory, almost all our actions should be motivated by love, either for God or for His children, or both. Fortunately, I'm sure that some of my actions are motivated by love, but I don't think that all of them are. Something to work on, I guess.

I'm glad to know that some, perhaps many, of my actions are partially, though not entirely, motivated by love. I think that true love is one of the purest and strongest motivations one can have. Love can motivate us to do great things for God and for other people. It's not necessarily wrong to be motivated partly by money or by a sense of duty, but I think it's better to be motivated mostly, if not entirely, by love.

Love Month

According to the LGBT community, June is Pride Month. In my community, however, the word "pride" has a negative connotation. Pride is associated with negative personality traits, such as self-centeredness and egomania. A proud person is arrogant, boastful, and full of themselves. I believe that much of our issue with pride stems from President Ezra Taft Benson's well-known talk, Beware of Pride. In it, he spoke against pride in some of the strongest language I've ever heard a prophet use: "Pride is the universal sin, the great vice." And he repeated it for emphasis: "Yes, pride is the universal sin, the great vice."

Yet, I know personally that not all members of the LGBT community are guilty of the sin of pride. That's why I prefer not to think of June as "Pride Month." Instead, I'd rather think of June as "Love Month."

While we see pride as "the universal sin, the great vice," we see love as the central element of the first two great commandments and the first great truth of all eternity. Love is a good thing. Love is open and welcoming. Love is kind.

And, importantly, love does not need to be romantic, let alone sexual. The Greeks have several words for love, and "eros" is only one of them. The many types and expressions of love also include brotherly love, familial love, the love we have for God, the love God has for us, and love toward all mankind. Love can be platonic, and we should have that kind of love toward everyone, and we should appreciate that people of the same gender can have that kind of love for each other.

So, this month and always, let's try to show love for each other and for everyone, even with the people with whom we disagree. We may not approve of all of their actions, but we can still love them, and we can appreciate all that is good in the love they have for each other. Let us not pridefully say that our way of life is better than theirs, that our expressions of love are purer than theirs, or that we are bound for heaven while they are bound for hell. It's not our place to judge. Instead, let us love them with the same kind of love God has for us. God wants us to love each other. So, this month and always, let's let go of our pride and instead show our love.