Love is a Key Ingredient
Your actions are speaking so loudly, I can’t hear a word you’re saying.
Talking about love and being loving in words or deeds are not the same thing. This is one part of life where intent and follow through have to look, sound, and smell the same. If the words don’t feel loving, sound caring, or if the actions contradict everything else, then they’re just words.
Healthy relationships of all kinds require love as a key ingredient. This is true for family, friends, neighbors, business, politics, and faith communities. If you seek to do great things but love is not baked in, it’s just an average idea looking for an luke warm response.
The Apostle Paul invested much of his time reminding early Christians about the critical role that love plays in healthy people and communities. Like us, living out loving words wasn’t any easier for them:
In words that sound nice…
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.”
I Corinthians 13:1
And in actions that may seem noble on the surface…
“And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.”
I Corinthians 13:3
Do your actions complement your words when it comes to love? If we are committed to something important but trample people down in pursuing it, what’s the point? We are just adding to the noise.
Speak love even when you disagree. Speak love to those your trust. Love is a very important ingredient in life. How do you speak love in your personal and professional life? I’d like to know so I can pass your ideas on to others and borrow a few for myself.
Life is a team sport. Show the players some love.
