“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
PROVERBS 3-4
JOURNAL
The more I think about love, the more I realize how radically different it is from the way I have often measured my life. M. Scott Peck defines love as “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” I love that definition because love is not primarily a feeling. It is an act of the will. It is choosing to move beyond comfort, ego, fear, and self-interest for the genuine good and growth of another person, while also continuing to grow myself.
When I put Peck’s definition beside 1 Corinthians 13, I see something even deeper. Paul strips away almost every other measurement of achievement. Knowledge, talent, faith, generosity, sacrifice, accomplishment, even extraordinary spiritual gifts ultimately amount to nothing without love. “If I do not have love, I am nothing.” That completely changes the scoreboard. I have spent so much of my life measuring achievement by outcomes. Did I win? Did I succeed? Did I accomplish what I set out to do? Did people respect what I built? None of those things are necessarily wrong. Excellence, discipline, growth, and achievement matter. But perhaps there is a much greater question: Did I love?
What would my life look like if love became my primary definition of achievement? Maybe the success of a day would not ultimately be determined by how much I accomplished, but by how much I loved while accomplishing it. Did my students become better because I taught them? Did my players become stronger human beings because I coached them? Did my family feel valued because I was present? Did the people around me grow because I encouraged, challenged, forgave, listened, served, and believed in them? And through all of it, did I become more patient, courageous, truthful, disciplined, and loving myself?
The more I consider Peck’s definition, the more it sounds like God. Scripture does not merely say that God has love. It says that God is love. God creates, nurtures, teaches, disciplines, forgives, gives freedom, and continually calls us toward growth. Maybe that is why Proverbs tells me to trust Him rather than my own understanding. God’s love is concerned with something much greater than my immediate comfort or the particular outcome I think I need.
This changes surrender for me. Trusting God does not mean becoming passive. I can work, prepare, compete, teach, coach, create, solve problems, and pursue excellence. But those things no longer have to determine my worth. Instead, they become opportunities to love. Achievement becomes the vehicle rather than the destination. The question becomes not simply, What did I accomplish? but What did I love into existence?
Maybe that is the highest achievement of a human life: learning to love. If God truly is love, then every time my capacity to love expands, I am becoming more like Him. Perhaps the purpose underneath every other purpose is simply to receive God’s love so completely that I become increasingly capable of giving it away. At the end of each day, maybe the scoreboard can become beautifully simple: Did I love? Did I help someone grow? Did I become more capable of love myself? If the answer is yes, then regardless of the outcome, something eternal was accomplished.
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