Sabbath Devotional :: Choose Love

choose love - Mormon Women for Ethical Government

MWEG’s fifth Principle of Peacemaking says, “Peacemaking chooses love instead of hate.”

This seems like a fairly easy one in the abstract, the theoretical. I don’t think many people consider themselves hateful or relish or seek out feelings of hatred. Most people want to love and be loved.

But it gets more complicated in the concrete, the specific, the up-close-and-personal and daily.

So how do we choose love?

Chapter 4 in 1 John is a master class on love, and I want to highlight a few verses here:

7. Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
8. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
9. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
11. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

There is a lot to digest here, but I want to focus on a few key points:

God took action to show us His love by sending Christ to be our Savior.
If we are to know God and follow Him, we are to love, and that requires both emotion and action.

Just a few verses later in that same chapter comes the phrase “perfect love casteth out fear.”

We are living in a time where there seems to be so much contention, vitriol, open disdain, and even hatred for those who think, look, or act differently. I truly believe much of this stems from fear. Fear of something or someone different — something or someone you don’t understand. Fear of change. Fear of loss. Fear of the “other.” These fears are stoked, often by misinformation or misunderstanding, into anger, and spill out into hateful and hurtful words and actions. I know I’ve been on the receiving end of this, and I’ve often been tempted to strike back.

So how do we combat this? It seems so rampant and pervasive!

With love.

And love is an action. Concrete action, taken in love, can cast out fear, bring hope, and make a difference! Let me first give an example from Christ’s life.

During the Last Supper, Christ lovingly washed the feet of each of His disciples. He served them. He showed love through action. He then told them that one of them would betray Him. And then he went on to say: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another” (John 13:34).

He set an example of acting to show love and then also showed that even when others hurt us, we are still commanded to love.

In the very next chapter comes this powerful admonition: “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15).

Then just a few chapters later, Christ asks Peter if he loves him, (which Peter repeatedly assures the Lord he does) then tells him “feed my sheep.”

To show love, we must act. We must serve. We must choose.

I woke up this morning with snatches of the hymn Dear to the Heart of the Shepherd running through my mind. It’s not a favorite hymn of mine, or even one I’m particularly familiar with, so I looked it up and read through the words. The first three verses are all about the Savior’s love for us and how because of that love He cares for each one of us as part of His fold. The last verse is about how we can follow that example. Here’s part of it:

Make us thy true under-shepherds;
Give us a love that is deep.
Send us out into the desert,
Seeking thy wandering sheep.

When we are trying to follow the Savior’s example, He can help fill our hearts with the love we need to care for His fold, our sisters and brothers. But then you can see, we have to take action. We have to seek out and care for the sheep.

At a BYU Devotional earlier this year, Pres. Ballard said, “I invite you to look deep in your souls and ask how you can fulfill your purpose of being a child of God by loving the Lord and loving your neighbor more faithfully than you have ever done before.”

Ask the Lord what you can do. Maybe it’s sending a text message to a friend who’s been on your mind. Maybe it’s finding a way to get involved in your community to help those in need. Maybe it’s wearing a mask to help protect those at higher risk from COVID. Maybe it’s marching at a rally, or speaking up and (hopefully lovingly) correcting misinformation or hurtful words, or listening to someone who needs to feel heard. Or it could even be just scrolling right past that Facebook post that makes your blood boil and makes you want to lash out with anger. Even if you aren’t able right now to show love to the person expressing hate, you can show love toward those at whom that hatred is directed — those who need love and support — and you can choose not to respond in hatred.

I love this quote from “The Little Purple Book“: “We will drive out the darkness, drive out the hate — but with light, and with love, because those are the only weapons that can heal this broken world” (“The Little Purple Book,” p. 3).

A year ago this week, I had the opportunity to attend the UN Conference in Salt Lake City. In the exhibit hall was a stained glass triptych by Holdman Studios entitled Roots of Humanity. The three panels represent faith, unity, and love, with love in the middle. It depicts both symbolic and concrete examples of these concepts, and I especially love how it shows people taking action in meaningful ways to express faith, love, and unity.

Many different cultures, belief systems, languages, countries, and people are shown here coming together. Faith and unity bring people together in love — but it doesn’t mean they’re all the same. It honors those differences without fear and brings people together through loving action.

As we face what seems to be the increasingly rampant fear and anger and vitriol and divisiveness, my hope is that we can choose love instead of hate. That we can turn to each other for support in fighting against it with light and with love, with concrete actions following the Savior’s example and admonition. That we can cast out fear — and drive out hate — by acting with love.