Love

Yesterday was the first January 21st without her since 3 years ago. It would only be natural for me to dwell on the subject of love.


While convoluted in nature, we seem to somehow "know" yet not understand.


Many even claim to love God. The same bunch claim God loves them as well. But here's a conundrum to the optimistic bunch. Is it love if God loves Himself more than anyone else?


Did I just make up that statement? Certainly not. It can easily be deduced. Here's a follow up question to those who try to refute the abovesaid statement: "Are you claiming that your love for God is more than the love He places upon Himself?"


Now, if we were to contextualise it in humanity, it would translate to selfishness.


How can this be true? Am I just doing some wordplay? Let's take a look at some scriptures then.


The word "love" appears many times as "ahab" in its original hebrew. The word "ahab" is used for the love between husband and wife, servant and master. The same word was used for Deuteronomy 6:5 "and thou shall love (ahab) the Lord thy God".


Sweet isn't it? But who does God love in return? Let's take another look at Deuteronomy, particularly 7:2-3 "When the LORD your God hands these nations over to you and you conquer them, you must completely destroy them. Make no treaties with them and show them no mercy."


If you think I'm just plucking scriptures out of context, read the whole bible and tell me there isn't favouritism. He would in fact go as far as to kill non related people, with reference to all the firstborn in Egypt who may or may not be involved in the suffering of the Hebrews, in favour of the joy and pleasure of the people He has set His eyes on.


If we are all God's creation and children, how does He choose between His children? Yet, if we contextualise this to a man with paternal responsibilities, favouritism is repulsed upon.


If we link these all up, with reference to my previous post, the conclusion is simple. God loves Himself more than anything else. He loves people who are able to fulfill the purpose of their existence.


However, here's the catch. You are only in the midst of fulfilling your purpose if you are suffering. You cannot claim to love God and yet live a comfortable life. The very purpose of our existence in God's context is to prove that because we are in His image and that we follow Him, we are able to do good despite the Devil's work.


If you are not suffering, you are not even worth the Devil's time to take note of. In other words, you're not following God and there's no need for the Devil to make a move on you.


The other conclusion is that, God's love cannot be a role model for us because of the mere fact that He is the creator and we are the creation. We must have our own understanding of "love". Unfortunately, my understanding of love includes many other features that are incongruous to God's. Anti favouritism being one. I will leave the long list for another day, when I deal with the ontology of morality.


There is, however, one thing that I concur. I believe that child like faith and love is the purest. I miss the days that we loved each other like little kids. She changed, and I grew up. Perhaps I will never love like a child again.