He jingles and wiggles. He begs and barks. He cuddles and goes crazy. He’s Digby the dog, and he’s been a wonderful addition to the Potter’s House this past year.

There’s something therapeutic about the presence of an animal. When it’s just you and a furry companion sitting on a chair together on a Monday morning, brushing your fingers through thick, black hair and caressing the back of the ears, life feels a bit fuller. Why is that?

As I reveled in the company of this pooch, I realized that I enjoyed bestowing love on him, whether that be my own body heat he was absorbing (and giving at the same time), the back massage he was receiving, or the simple presence of another human being while his top priority human being was taking a shower (something he was less interested in).

As he rested next to my leg on the rocking red chair, I continued my readings in the book “Soul Cravings” by Erwin McManus. The current section titled “Intimacy” has been focusing on the many thoughts, ponderings, and pursuits of love. What strikes me today is the idea of love extended by those who claim to be closest to God, because God is love. But often times we find that those who are the “religious elite” may appear to be closest to God but farthest from love.

There’s a story found in the Gospels about an adulterous woman who is about to be stoned for her unfaithful behaviors. The Sadduces, a group of folks from the religious sector, attempted to debunk this Jesus guy by placing him with the decision to either obey the law by picking up a rock or throw out the law all together.

Yet in return he responded by saying “Anyone here who is without sin can throw the first stone at her.”

What fascinates me even more is the fact that Jesus, being the fella without any sin at all, could have thrown the first stone – he had the right to. He claimed all the divinity of God and authority and power, but he chose to love.

Where do I stand? Am I found in the message of the law or the message of love?

It’s hard sometimes to decide what loving people looks like. Love has so many different meanings in our society today – we love movies, we love cars, we love guns, we love paint, we love post-it notes, we love couscous, we love mochas, we love flip flops. Yet at the core of the matter, we simply cannot do without love, and this my friends I believe is a love much deeper than an affinity towards your order at Starbucks.

What does it look like to love as God loves? Where do we even begin? Or better question, where as it already begun? Love is to listen to someone’s story. Love is a conversation. Love is a note of encouragement. Love is a good game of ultimate frisbee. Love comes in so many shapes, forms, and figures, because we are designed in the image of God – an image of love. To remove love from life is to remove oxygen from the air – there simply is no life.

Love in it’s greatest expression is not something received, but something given.

And in the end, after discovering more about love, we come to realize the depth and height of God’s love. It’s a quest of vast magnitude. Paul even states this desire in a prayer:

…according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Love, in all of it’s complexity and greatness, is designed to bring us home – to God.

You will spend your life working through relationships trying to understand your need for love, your inadequacies in love, your desperation for love, and all the time you might miss the signs that your heart is giving you, that you’re searching for God.

Erwin McManus