Love like money

I have been thinking about how we too often treat love like a comodity. Love is money to us, exchangable, refundable we give to get more often than not, however much we can deny it in our minds. Friendship is the curious combination of love for love, aceptance for trust, trust for acceptance. I give, you give. I take, you take. It's a harsh way to see it like that yes but relatively true. I have not had the privailage that many have to have that one close individual. That best friend. I still think that this kind of relationship can easily cross the bounds of loving the other for who they are to loving them because of who they are for you. I am Miss. Invincible when I stand beside you, because of what you bring to me... I like being near you because I feel xyz. You are cool, and so if I associate me with you I will also be cool. How true are we really? I love you because of who you are. Nothing else. No conditions, no trade-offs, nothing that you could offer me in return. I'd hope that it's not as rare as raw honesty claims, because I don't think we as the human race really do understand very well what love like that is. I'm not denying that we can love people like that. No doubt we try, we try our hardest and we probably succeed a lot of the time. There is the difference of walking into a room, not noticing that person you love is there until you turn around and you find your face smiling of it's own accord, and the you that comes into the room wondering what others will think despite them being your freinds, your close friends. That niggling feeling at the back of your mind that maybe they might just want to be else where and, "What do I have to do to keep them there?" - to have them want to be there? Then, that's sidetracking a bit to about loving yourself... I know they talk about love being a choice. I believe that it is. I do also think that love does happen a lot of its own accord. We can't choose who we are attracted to initially, we don't know why we just seem to click with some people better than others. Sure, depending on what circumstance you've come from it might be far easier to love than it might be for someone else. The choice really comes into play when that other person has absolutely nothing to offer us. If that is unconditional love - true love rather than just love like money, then shouldn't we love like that all the time? So, you meet person A, your 'love choice' is to immediately recognise that this person has got absolutely nothing to offer you (even if they might and most people do have something). It all seems rather difficult. Subconciously or not, I think the kinds of questions that run through our mind when we do chance across this whole freindship thing is, what is the value of loving this person? What's the point? It is hard to love the way we should. It's something I guess as Christians we should desperately want as we have been given that kind of love (and that still brings to my finite mind of how reciporical it all is). We fail constantly. We can try though. Those rare moments when love stands on its own feet and the other person is the best in the world are worth it. It's like transcending selfishness for a moment which is some great achievement that is clearly not possible on our own.

The LORD loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love. -Pslam 33:5

There is hope yet. We were commanded to love (John 15). We have examples of love. The greatest example of love even. And it is interestingly mentioned as a 'debt',

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. - Romans 13:8-10

Human love cannot match the love of God. But in as much as we are falible, I think our love needs to be sincere or it is not really love at all. **edit. I was just listening to the Coldplay song Fix You There is a line that says, "When you love someone but it goes to waste." Now I understand the context of the song, but can love ever go to waste? If real love is unconditional and has no correlation metaphorically to money then by carrying that idea one step further, love cannot ever be wasted. That is a good thing to know. Whether you are the giver, where the reciever pulls away, or the reciever where the giver will not or cannot any longer provide that love.