Copyright (c) 1999 by Benjamin Devey. All rights reserved.

A baby begins life with a self-centered world view. With maturity a person's outlook expands to include others. However, not everyone matures to realize that they are not the center of attention. Each person is at a different stage of recognizing and treating others as equals.

Loving people are able to care about others without expecting reciprocal feelings. True love comes from sincere feelings and gives automatically. Giving comes naturally when we include others as part of our world. Even though love isn't offered conditionally, it naturally engenders a mutual response. These happy associations can bring life's greatest joys.

True love often defies popular beliefs. Love's opposite is not hate. The antithesis of love is selfishness, which is the manifest inability to love. It is an emotional immaturity that would rather receive than give. For these people, love is a conquest to be won. It's about give and take, or grabbing the biggest share. People are objects and possessions. Passions become rights, rather than nurturing expressions. These childish pretensions fall way short of the ideal of love.

Love is an actual power of heaven. But heavenly powers only come through principles of righteous living. Love is absent in compulsion or force. Its real power is inseparable from the divine gift of agency. If it isn't freely given and received, it isn't love. In heaven and on earth, power and influence are obtained only through persuasion, long suffering, gentleness, meekness, and genuine love.

The desire to control another person limits one's own ability to love. Force denies love. Possessiveness creates all kinds of wrong perspectives and twisted outcomes. The controller believes the companion is there to meet his needs and make him happy. A relationship becomes disposable, to be tossed out once it has outlived its usefulness. The controller is always on the lookout for the fatal flaw that can disqualify the candidate for love. If it doesn't work out, it's always the other's fault. He jumps from one failed relationship to the next, never recognizing that the problem is internal. He hopes someday to find the right person, instead of understanding the deep-rooted need to change the way he sees and treats others.

A part of loving is recognizing the amazing uniqueness of another individual. Every person is a wonderful medley of gifts, talents, and accumulated perspectives. When we accept others, recognizing their strengths and weakness, we love them as they are.

True love doesn't enter the house thinking, "After I rip out the carpets and paneling, rearrange all the walls and cabinets and add a wing or two, it will be a nice place. "

In love, we enter a temple with reverence and awe, seeing the design of the Maker there. Once each of us recognizes the inadequate construction of our own house, we can be a lot less critical of another's.

Love gives. It doesn't take. It cannot be demanded. In giving, love is magnified, not diminished. We cannot make anyone choose to love. But we can make a conscious choice to be loving.

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