By
J.R. Miller
"Life is an education in love." Learning to love is a long lesson. It takes all of the longest life to learn it. The most inveterate obstacle in mastering the lesson is SELF, which persists with an energy which nothing but divine grace can overcome. When no longer we seek our own in any of our relations with others, we have learned to love. Until then, we still need to stay in Christ's school.
The test of love is service. The love which does not give and do the utmost, is not love. To live for one's self in any way, in any degree, is to leave a blur, a blemish, on the life, however attractive it may be in other regards.
The most brilliant life as men rate life is tame and lusterless until it begins to serve, and then instantly glory begins to radiate from it. There is more true glory in one humble act of self-denial, in one deed of thoughtful kindness, in one moment of patient serving of another--than in a whole Sinai of clouds and lightnings.
Those who sit by fever beds, ministering to human need in its countless forms, seem to miss much that is very beautiful. Their lowly ministry keeps them away from places of honor, even from scenes of spiritual ecstasy. Absorption in the duties of love in the home or among the poor, causes men and women to miss much that the world esteems. But meanwhile there is a higher reward. They enter more fully into the joy of the Lord.
After all, only that life is most worth living which has in it the quality of service and sacrifice. It is only life itself--which is worth giving to others. Only when we serve in love that forgets itself--gives itself out in its serving, do we either find deep joy for ourselves or give true happiness or blessing to others.
"Love seeks not its own" is the heart of the definition of love. "Love seeks not its own." It never thinks of itself. It never aims at its own advancement, its own ease, and its own pleasure. It always thinks of the other person. It seeks to give pleasure, to do good, not to have pleasure and to receive good. The first true aim in friendship is, not to have friends--but to be a friend. It does not ask what it can get out of a friendship, in what ways the friend is going to be helpful--but what it can do for the friend, how it can promote his interests, advance his good, be a help to him. "Love seeks not its own."
In one of Joseph Hocking's stories, the old preacher, a thoughtful man, says to his young people: "My little children, love is the great divine thing in life. It is God -- for God is love. Only do not mistake the alloy of love for love itself. Much of what is called love is not love at all. It is simply a desire to be loved. Love gives--the thought of taking is only secondary. Love says, 'How can I give happiness?' not 'How can I get it?' The latter is simply love for self, the desire to be loved--which is but a poor, miserable caricature of love. That is why life is so poor. We mistake the desire to be loved for love itself, and try to be content. We ask, 'How can I get?' not 'How can I give?' and thus God does not come near to us, Eternal Life does not come near to us. We do not live in the light;--we only see its faint reflection. And now abides faith, hope, love, and the greatest of these is love--but love seeks not its own."
When we think of it, what is the kind of love we usually see in people about us? The description runs, "Love seeks not its own." Does it never in what we call love? Then it would seem that love is not very common, for there are not many people who never seek their own, that is, put thought of themselves first. Take the matter of choosing friends. Do we think chiefly of what the friend is to be to us? Or, of what we can be to him? Must we not confess that too often it is the selfish element that is the more marked?
