For those who know me, you may know that I try to be an open book about my foibles and the things I learn along the way. With this post I want clue you in to a truth I learned about love a long time ago.

I have always been a Christian. God is a strong part of my parents' lives and I was introduced to Him from before I can remember. I grew up hearing the stories of Jesus' ministry. I particularly remember times reading an illustrated children's bible with my parents before going to bed. (Thank you Mom and Dad!) Additionally, with personal experiences from God at a young age, God formed a strong early belief in Him in me.

My seriousness of faith lead me to diligently study apologetics, or the defense of the faith, once questions and doubts came up in high school. Hours and hours of online debates: Christianity vs Islam, Christianity vs Athiesm, Christianity vs Judaism, Christianity vs that other Christianity. You name it, I probably watched it over the course of a few months. God used that time to settle some concerns I had in my own heart, which was good.

That was when I transitioned to what I can best describe as "convincing people into loving God" mode. I would relish an opportunity to use my new found apologetics knowledge. I would regularly sit someone down and show them how, "clearly, because of the geographic diversity in early text manuscripts of scriptures with multiple attestation in a multitude of varying cultural and political contexts which corroborate and validate each other and show that we can trust the words of the bible, that YOU TOO should fall in love with Jesus!" Pssh, are you in love yet??

Ha, it is funny to write about now because it's so painfully obvious that most people don't find love from heaven or here on earth because of clever arguments. You don't fall in love with someone because they present the "10 best reasons this match was made in heaven" with eloquence you haven't heard since that groomsman speech at that last wedding. Rather, people fall in love because they experience love first and believe that it is possible. Well, at least that is the case with God because he certainly started this whole love-thing long before we started to catch on.

Instead of focusing on crushing the arguments against God and making others feel foolish for even entertaining them, I realized that the doubt-filled arguments are more akin to excuses. Most of use find any argument around to confirm what we already feel. In our relationship with God, we can sometimes set up these stumbling blocks in our path as a way to comfort ourselves for not pursuing God like we think we should. Apologetics can be helpful for moving roadblocks out of the middle and off to the side of the path, but they don't often help a person choose to keep walking forward.

Alternatively, love personified in a kind greeting, an inviting host, an encouraging word, a genuine question about someone's day, a personal sacrifice for another can motivate a renewed motion along the path of love. Those kinds of behaviors characterized with patience, humility, and forgiveness show that love really does exist in the world. Perhaps it is worth it to seek it out where it can be found--and Christians know the greatest source of this love!

Let's help remove stumbling blocks for others when that is useful, and let's also strive to present a persuasive tangible love to the world first and foremost. Jesus did that for us. He went to the cross so we wouldn't have to be separated from God. He proved that his impeccable character is genuine and worth taking a look at. How much would it be worth to learn to love just a little bit more like Jesus did? Maybe, just maybe, it would be worth giving up some things in our lives so that we could gain more of His love-perspective.