I Am Nothing If I Don't Have Love

If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.

And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.

If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. - 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

Though it has been a little over a month since my last blog entry, I have spent a great deal of time contemplating an entry.  Today, I find myself reflecting on love on the day after Valentine’s day.  Being deployed and single is both a blessing and cross at the same time.  I enjoy listening to my married soldiers talk about their wives and post stories about their lives on social media.  

I usually reflect on a reading of the day and today’s Gospel came from St Mark.  St Mark told a great story of feeding four thousand people.  Jesus was moved with compassion and pity for the people who followed him because they were hungry.  So in a miracle, Jesus feeds the people.  He loved the people.  And this brings me to the passage from St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.  

Saint Paul, from my studies, was prone to being rather outspoken.  This passage speaks to me because it brings back to my mind both God and love.  It is really easy to try to justify sinful behavior and selfish thoughts because I am deployed.  But in all of this where in my life is found God and love.  I read this passage and both contemplate the word “love” and the name “Jesus”.  I think to myself, ‘If I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have Jesus, I am nothing.’  When I think about the last time I prayed, I struggle to find a qualitative example.  I know I thank God quite regularly for many things, not the least the gift of waking up.  But conversation with God.  The actual stop and listen and just be in God’s presence.  Is this the absence of love in my life?

I had a particularly difficult separation from a woman I readily admit loved deeper than I thought I could.  But the love St Paul speaks of is reciprocal.  God loves me and I have to love him back.  This is an relationship that lasts as long as I am willing to invest in it.  My love for her was different.  It did not resemble my relationship with God.  In many ways I traded my relationship with God for her.  I wrote some time ago that a relationship with another person has to begin with a relationship with God.  And I still believe that, though in practice, I failed quite miserably.  And I allowed myself to become miserable.  I lied to myself to think that my deployment would allow things to fix itself without any real effort from me.  And any relationship sinks without effort.  

It is a real goal of mine to be a man of consequence.  I want the things that I do, the posts that I write, to have meaning.  I hope that they reach another person and help them open their heart to God and start the relationship I don’t have with the Lord.  To achieve my goal requires rediscovering who God is and who I am.  And I begin with God.  I think God will remind me and allow me to rediscover who I am.