Remain in my Love

Jesus told his disciples, remain in my love. 

Jesus asks his disciples to continue to exist in his love when others had abandoned that divine relationship.  Continued existence (past, present and future) is a definition of time. Jesus asks for time and love.  Love like he gives and like the Father gives.

This is what Jesus says about the Father.  The Father remains in me and I in him.  As my Father has loved me, I have loved you, remain in my love.

I have two children.  When my oldest child was born, they carried her out all bundle up in a new clean blanket.   The nurse handed her to me.  She looked up from my arms, her little fist clinched as babies do.  She looked into my soul with eyes that could only see my shape.  Not seeing me but taking my love.  No matter how old she is, I still see this perfection.  I still see the baby who looked to my inner soul.  She will always remain in my love.

When my second daughter was born, it was different.  The doctor graced me with the privilege to accompany my wife during the delivery.  Being in the delivery room, I held her mother's hand and heard my daughter first gasp for air.  I saw almost immediately after she was born, still naked; her eyes open looking deep into my heart.  Her arms flailing outstretched reaching to hold and she grabbed my soul, the same but different. She will always remain in my love.

No two people are exactly alike. All human relationships are different. They cannot be because they are not in the same place or same time.  They are different because they happen at different times and between two different peoples.  Relationships are based on the time love dynamics and that makes them unique.  Times change, person change, and dynamics will change.

Only God is eternal and without change. Gods love for us is constant because the love that existed for us in creation is the same and timeless.  In the constant and timeless is the absolute and perfect love.  This is the goodness of God.  

God's perfect love exists in an imperfect world.  An imperfect world of human existence that is not eternal but is forever changing.  This constant change is the result of our free will.  Free will cause people to experience love in different ways. This is source of that personal relationship with Christ because each person's love of God and love of Christ is a different experience. 

This free allows us to find unique and personal love in another person and is God has an opposite effect.  Time and situation happens by chance and surrounds each relationship.  The accident of human relationship in the subject and object of love is unique.  Relationships can be built on the same relational foundation but each is a collection of different experiences, persons, and time particulars.  Sadly, however, this free will in an imperfect world is a reason that bad things happen.

In people, the act of love is self creative, self conscious and self giving though intrinsic and different in each relationship.  But the love from the divine is eternal and constant.  God’s time does not change because it is timeless.  God love does not change because it is constant.  God’s love is accessible to all, yet is an inaccessible object that we cannot change. It exists independently of our love and is its cause.  

My mother always told her children she loved us each as much as the other.  I tell my children the same.  My love for my family is complete.  It is timeless and constant in human imperfection.  

But no matter how much love I have, it is love tainted by human experience that can never be as complete and uninfluenced as God’s love.  Human love is imperfect in its bias, influenced by the time in which it exists.  God’s love is without prejudice.  To make our love more perfect, we need to tune ourselves to the ever present goodness of God. To our example of love and goodness found in Jesus Christ.  

In the eternity of time and the constantness of love, I know that God is good.  In bold quiet ways, God loves us and asks us to remain in his love.