Listen to these lovely words: ²I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God’s great mystery. You have to read this verse a few times to really understand its full meaning.

When you and I become children of God, we are bound together by threads of love. We are no longer alone. We have someone who really loves us and whom we can love. We can care for one another. We can take each other by the hand and help one another through life. We can look after one another and stop one another from stumbling and falling face down in the dusty streets of life.

However, this love is often not visible in our lives. The main reason for this is that we don’t really understand it. We don’t understand that when we become children of God, we are bound to all the other children with threads of love.

Now we no longer have any excuse. Now we know about the love between us. When we look at our fellow man, we have to look through the lens of love. You see, these glasses work like sunglasses – only permitting some rays to filter through. Those rays in someone else that usually irritate me, poor behaviour, even lovelessness in someone else, are blocked by the glasses of love. Therefore it is easier to reach out to others, because we really care for one another.

The secret of the love, however, is not found in the person, but in the threads of love. The secret of God is Jesus. Jesus is the thread of love that binds people together. Jesus is the magnet that draws people closer to one another.

When Jesus is inside two people, they are drawn closer together. They care for and want to help one another. But Jesus is not a prerequisite for love and caring between two people. When Jesus is in someone, that person is also drawn to people who do not have Jesus in their lives.

If we look at life realistically, we have to admit that we do not always succeed in doing this. It is an ongoing struggle, like Suné (not her real name) says:

It is definitely not easy to love. I’ve learnt that jealousy and ego go hand-in-hand with lovelessness. These thorns in people’s lives are the reason why we do not fully live God’s great command to love our neighbour.

This lovelessness that I talk about is that great love that enables me to clamber across the barbed wire of anger and unforgiveness. It takes crawling, crying, talking and praying to have the courage of our conviction to admit and conquer this.

Loving one another is a full-time job. May we use Jesus as thread to make the love between us flow ever stronger. May we crawl, cry, talk and pray!

Scripture

Colossians 2:1-5

Reflection

How do you understand the love between people?

Is it possible to really love others?

How can you live Jesus’ love to others?

Prayer

Father, thank you for revealing the secret of love, Jesus, to us. Thank you that Jesus is the love that binds us together and that because of that love, we are no longer alone. Please help us to make the love between us more visible so that it will draw others closer too. I pray these things in Jesus’ name, Amen.