Capacity to Love Others

Been thinking about my capacity to love other people and have come to the conclusion that I am able to love all people, but to differing degrees. In assessing my feelings for the people in my life I have come to realize something. I love some people with more passion and intensity than others. This got me thinking and so I began to assess, from my hearts perspective, all of the relationships that I am in at the present time. It was phenomenal to get the revelation that I do not love any two people to the same degree or with the same intensity.

I can honestly say in my analysis of the many relationships in my life, especially those that are closest to me, I have differing degrees and levels of love for each person. I have four children; each with their own unique personality. I have always said that I love all of my children equally and I believe that is true, but then I began to assess each relationship and realized that although my heart has the ability to love each of them to the same degree, my love for each one is very unique and different depending on the individual person.

So I have determined that my love for each person in my life is very real and can run very deep, but that it is impossible to feel the same feelings for two different people. Maybe it would be safe to say that each relationship was intended to serves a purpose in my life having to do specifically with my ability and capacity to share and give love to another. I am thinking maybe this is as it should be.

The Bible says we are to love one another. Most people struggle in the area of their love walk because they feel they are unable to do as God clearly commands us to do. Is it really that we can’t do as God has commanded or is it that we are measuring our love for others based on relationships in our lives or ideas of how real love should feel? Could it be that we are unable to love mainly because we think we need to have warm, gushy, heart felt moments with each person? Wow—I say no way!

I’ll bet if a person were to make a list of all of the people they love, take that list and define the love that they feel for each one, they will have similar findings to mine. This is awesome because it tells me that I do have the ability to love others, even those who my heart doesn’t go pitter patter for; even those who have hurt me. The capacity to love is there, the degree is just not always what we think it should be.

We have the capability to love each person God has given us to love. We need only come to terms with the fact that each person in our lives is to be loved with the measure of love we have been given to share with them. This is true and can be tested if you look at any one of the relationships in your life that is difficult. I mean the ones where you have tried to love someone in spite of your real feelings about that person. Knowing in your heart that the Lord has told you to love them, but it has been difficult because of a conflict of personality or for some other reason.

Think about how you would feel if that person were hurt in some way or if something terrible happened to them. How does it make your heart feel when you see that person in pain? If you don’t care and you can truly brush it off as if it is of no concern to you, then you do not love the person, but if you have an ounce of compassion and empathy for that person…there, you will find your measure of love for them. It is there….It is. We need only dig deep to find it at times, especially those times when that person may be getting on our nerves.

This is another one of those areas where we need to stop thinking of love in terms of the feelings we have for a person and truly get outside of our limited views. God’s desire is that we love all people…this means all, so how unfair would it be if he did not give us the capability to do so? He wouldn’t put people in our lives and then make it impossible for us to love them. We will need his help to find the love at times, but it is available. We need only move out of our own way to make a way for it to be expressed.

The Lord does not put boundaries and limitations on our love, we do. It is by our own desires and our narrow view of what we think love looks like that we struggle with our love walk. The Lord always gives us what we need to do as he says. He is faithful and good, all the time.