Love takes Time

I wonder if God gave us time so we can appreciate eternity more? A lot of us question our existence often. It seems weird that we are just here with all this stuff surrounding us. How did it get here? Why are we here to experience it? What's the point? And after many years of thinking, the idea that God gave us this time here on Earth to appreciate eternity more makes the most sense to me. Let me further explain.

God could have easily created us to live with Him immediately. But what would have been the point of that? He created us out of love, and in order for us to love Him back, we must have a choice. We can't be forced to love Him any more than we can be forced to love one another. He gave us free will for a reason. If we have to choose love Him, then we first must experience love for ourselves. This is where I think our time on Earth comes into play. After a lot of questions and some research, I've found that one of the main things that separates Earth from Heaven is time. (there are different types of "time", but we don't experience all the different types in Heaven.) We experience Heaven after we die, for eternity. But we first must live here and die in order to experience that. If that is the case, then time we spend here is unique to Earth.

On a different, yet similar note, if the time we experience here is unique to Earth, it would also mean that love has to have time first in order to really exist. Love doesn't end when we die, but it sure can't begin unless we live. As a baby, I didn't come out of the womb with clapping hands singing praise and love songs to Jesus. I had to first learn love through the actions of my parents. The cool thing is, the love I was being taught by my parents is the same love they were taught from their parents and so on. What an exciting cycle of love! But that cycle had to begin somewhere. The Bible tell us, that cycle began with Adam and Eve. In the first few chapters of Genesis, God shows Adam and Even what love should consist of. But Adam and Eve had to learn it for themselves! They didn't listen to God, and God became angry at them. The good news is that we have a compassionate God, and He forgave them. Through that mercy and forgiveness, Adam and Eve learned that God will love them no matter what. That is love. But it didn't happen right away. It took Adam and Eve time to learn this. And now years later, we are learning that same love. Love has never changed since the beginning of time.

The problem is that our culture has changed dramatically over time. Every one of us is influenced by our surroundings, and over time those influences change the way we look at things. Unfortunately, the American culture has become more and more dependant on media, and as time carries on, the idea of love has become a constant victim. So often we hear young kids throwing the word "love" around without actually meaning it. They see teens on TV that after 2 hours of knowing one another, are madly in love. Then something happens like another girl or guy getting in the way, or a simple fight, and all of a sudden those teens have "fallen out of love". Watching shows like that presents a completely false and negative depiction of what love really is. Even if a parent explains to the child what they just saw is wrong, the fact that the idea is still in that child's head is a big problem. Most teens don't listen to their parents, so instead they decide to enter relationships at very early ages, throw the word "love" around after a day or so, and then get ridiculously hurt when it doesn't work out. God has showed us time and time again, that love should not end, ever. These shows tell kids otherwise. Is that really what we want to be teaching our children? Sometimes, we don't have a choice because of how dependant we are on media. This is why it is so important to teach our children love at an early age as it aligns with God's ideas, not our cultures. I feel like the divorce rate wouldn't dramatically decline if we focused more on teaching our children about God instead of letting the TV become a babysitter/educator. Love wouldn't have an option to become a victim because those values are already set before entering into situations where controlling the amount of media intake is harder. Lets stop making love a victim, and let God show us how to live.