Defining Love

Preliminary Reading (optional): Time is like a tree, Reality, Truth, and Faith, Expecting Unhappiness, I am an Addict

Love is when you can’t imagine a future reality without someone or something. When all your future realities involve this someone, you love them.

 …for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part… 

This involves a range of potential future scenarios. But it’s a really wide range. Essentially, no matter the situation, we are together.

By default, you love yourself, because all of your future realities include you. If you don’t love yourself, you need to learn to, because there is literally no escaping it. Love is different than expectations, because love is something that you can take with you everywhere. So while you may be addicted to it, the fact that it is optional makes it a choice. And a habit rather than a chore.

And God is love. If God is love, God is literally not imagining a future reality without us. The fact that God is love is literally a promise to be with us. And Immanuel, is fulfillment of that promise.

Hate is the opposite of love. The ability to imagine a reality without someone or something. And loving that reality. So if God is love, the absence of God is hate.