Love as a concept in Christian parlance is not a new fad. The love which our Lord Jesus Christ has for the world motivated Him to be subjected to all the indignities He suffered on the cross and died. John 3:16 is about the most popular scripture known to all Christians. It is a verse of the Bible that summarizes the mission of Christ to the earth and its accomplishment.
It is against this backdrop that a critical look at the way love is perceived and practiced today is worrisome to me and many other concerned observers. The idea of love is either completely misunderstood by majority of Christians or when understood, is not practiced possibly because of the selflessness and sacrifices that characterizes its true expression.
The advent of the information revolution has also done a great damage to a balanced understanding of love. A vast majority of today’s youths see love from the perspectives expressed on TV screens and fictional love books.
This book is born out of a sincere desire to bring sanity to bear on the varied and skewed understand people have about love and its true expression in line with the purpose of God. True love possesses the greatest potential to bless humanity when expressed in its true form because the entire purpose and plan of God is hinged directly on it.
On Saturday, September 2, 2006, I honoured an invitation from the Youths of The Open Christian Assembly (TOCA) in Kano to speak to them during a breakfast Seminar during their 2006 Youth Week. I am yet to forget one crucial statement I made that also surprised me. I said “I have a strong desire to affect people in ways that may not be conventional. You may not like it and you don’t need to like it. It is my passion and I can’t be stopped but even if you want to stop me, then you need to kill me!”
At the end of the programme, the Executive team of the Youth Fellowship gave me a gift. As expected, it was a book (I wonder why I rarely get other kinds of gifts besides books!). The title of the book si Romancing the Divine by Don Nori and it is a story about True Love. Before then, I had completed the manuscript of this book. The thoughts shared by Don Nori in his book is as radical as the life of love that I have always desired to live out both with people around me and with God. It has caused more conflict than I had bargained but I have stuck to it because I believe in it and I see results. I want to share a few of such thoughts as I gleaned from the first few pages of Don Nori’s Romancing the Divine:
How noble true love is! How invincible! How pure! How innocent! Love simply comes, often undetected even by the one overtaken by its mysterious powers. True love. The lonely covet its reality. The arrogant flaunt its presence. The ignorant snub its wonder. It is as illogical as anything can be. It is hopeless to describe it and folly to shun it. The greatest philosophers have sought to define it. Religion has tried to buy it. Many have tried to elude it.
Love is as hopeless to understand as it is impossible to deny. Yet reason and logic are helpless against love, for it is a most formidable foe of the mundane and the average. True love, you see, dares to go places where reason cannot thread. Love sees realities about which philosophy can only hope to dimly speculate. True love knows what tradition can only distantly remember.
True love draws the least lovable. It can make anything a hero. True love is the sustaining power of the universe itself, yet is so lovely that it abides fully in the hearts of those foolish enough to respond to its rapturous invitation to come.
Love without legalism; commitment without control; fullness without fear; relationship without religion – the very mention of such possibilities brings feelings of exhilaration and hope, for they are the deepest yearnings of our souls. They are the essence of true love.
Love practiced like stated above frees you to reach out to the best in God and reach the deepest soul of any man or woman you interact and relate with. That is the aspiration I desire to fulfill in my life; what about you?
As you read the thoughts expressed in this book, I implore you to open your heart and dedicate your life to the Love of God and Love for fellow human beings. Real life revolves around this and desiring to live otherwise will leave you with many regrets.
I desire to see lives changed as a result of this message. Do not read only for gathering more information because the driving force behind this inspiration is beyond that. Read for a revolution of love in your life and you will never regret doing so.
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