In search for world peace, prosperity, better international ties and relations with a mashing up of uncontrolled human strife and wartime-like milieu; terrorists and anti-human agents playing their dirty role with the breakdown of political instability all around the globe, people are confused where humanity is headed. Death, poverty and other poignant issues are not anymore new to our ears or eyes as it very less pricks our consciences. We callously ignore them with unsympathetic heart that all these things will go on as it is. In greed, lust, hate and wantonness, humanity has lost the capacity to love. The blindness of ignorance and indifference toward our fellow humans reveals the total depraved state of the fallen adamic race.
There is a bankruptcy of love in this world and the question remains whether humans can do anything to recover from the fate we’ve built with our own hands. Do we pessimistically live the here and now waiting for that final glorious redemption? Or do we roll up our sleeves and do something about it? Is there a thing that the world is crying out to? The world is crying out for something greater, better and transcendent virtues. It is something that is otherworldly and can only be unpacked in the realm of deeper spiritual entity.
The world is not in need of more riches, wisdom, skills, resources or power. Wealth has corroded human to imbecility, wisdom has puffed up pride in humans resulting in his own destruction, powers and resources have only built walls between human. Even after all these millennia of searching and groping, humans still doesn’t come to grip with the simple fact that love is all we hunger for. As Benjamin Disraeli observed, “We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end.” Without love, the obliteration of human race is right at the door. The feelings of insecurity, fear, distrust, temperaments, anger, revenge and un-forgiveness is wheeling the whole world into an abyss of doom and gloom. Only love can come to the rescue. Love the supreme ethic of all morality. The world is dying for love. What love are we talking here? It’s the celestial love! Human love most of times is purely selfish and i-focused. It seeks one’s own good but the divine love is what the world yearns for. The kind of love that is willing to give up and sacrifice uncompromisingly. The love that is less natural and that surpasses knowledge and faith, pure and holy blazing with the heavenly flame of doing the will of God.
The world indeed exists on love. Look at a mother caring for her young ones, feeding and nurturing them to grow up to adulthood. What compels them to do that? Is that naturally inherent bequeathed by the process of time plus matter plus chance? No, it’s that of divine love. A prayer made for needy and broken world, a visit to a lonely patient, a helping hand rendered to someone in need, a word of encouragement to someone depressed and so forth. All these acts make the world a more beautiful place. And that’s what make human different from animals. Once we fail to love, we reduce ourselves down to a baser lower primate instinct animal.
Love looks through colors, race, ethnicity, tribes, languages, groups and is not limited by walls of insincerity and uncouth mindset. It always travels beyond its intent destinations. It walks the second mile of rendering service. Love gives without setting boundaries. It is always cheerful in the happiness of others. Philosopher Erich Fromm writes, “Love is the most powerful striving in man. It is the most fundamental passion, it is the force which keeps the human race together, the clan, the family, society. The failure to achieve it means insanity or destruction-self-destruction or the destruction of others. Without love, humanity could not exist for a day.” What a statement in the context of all the looming dangers of unending conflicts and battle in and around us!
The vacuum devoid of love within human hearts points to the fact that love is what human most need. Even the famed atheist writer Bertrand Russell confessed, “In the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined.” The world today is in dire need of divine love. The world reconciling itself with the God of heaven through the person of Love will release the oil of healing in this world. The touch from heaven upon the earth will be felt once the God-incarnate Son inhabits the populaces with his supernatural glory and grace. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love (1 Corinthians 13:13). Shalom to all the world!
Vebu Khamo
Bible Student.
