Loving the Right Things

When people who follow Jesus love the right things, they help create God’s kingdom on earth; and that is something beautiful.
~Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz

With Valentine’s Day around the corner, I think about how hard it can be sometimes to “love the right things.” It’s easy to be good at loving the hearts and flowers and chocolate-y kinds of things in any relationship. However, these touch only the surface of what it means to truly love and be with someone in any kind of relationship, through thick and thin, through joyous occasions as well as the trials of life.

Antoine de Saint Exupéry in his book The Little Prince, wrote, "On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux." (One cannot see well except with the heart. The essential is invisible to the eyes).

What is essential, in love and in life, can only be seen rightly when we view the world through Jesus’ eyes and when he is allowed to make His home at the center of our hearts. Loving the right things means following Jesus’example of love in all our relationships, and in so doing we see the very real presence of God’s kingdom on earth. And that is, indeed, something beautiful.

Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it.
Romans 12:9 (The Message)

Love is the language every heart speaks,
And Love is the answer to all that man seeks.
~Helen Steiner Rice