Love isn't a feeling, it's an ability

So I saw a special sneak preview of the new Steve Carell movie, "Dan in Real Life," tonight. One of the few remaining benefits of being a student here at USC. You now must skip class, blow off work, or otherwise rearrange your life in order to be at the Russell House before 10 a.m. on Mondays to obtain a free ticket to the football games, but you get a free sneak preview at a movie every once in a while.

I don't plan on spoiling the film for anyone (but it is awesome if you're trying to decide to go see it), but a line was spoken that didn't really hit me until after the movie. At some point, a minor character speaks the words "love isn't a feeling, it's an ability." Now as far as earthly, boy-girl love, I'm not sure this idea holds true. To me, both times I've been (or thought I've been) in love, it was very much a feeling, rather than an ability.

I can't help but thinking, though, that our love for God is a lot like "an ability," rather than a feeling. Now the ability I'm speaking of isn't like a skill, like most people think of abilities. I don't mean that some people are born with or have acquired the SKILLS needed to love God, and some people aren't. It's more that our love for God can be much more clearly defined and displayed by things we do, rather than emotions we feel. I think this is one of the major ways our love for Him differs from our love of a family member, spouse, or boyfriend/girlfriend.

With the direction modern/post-modern (I'm not sure what the correct adjective is now) churches and worship music is going, it is easy to compare our love for Christ to "earthly" love. There was a whole movement of worship songs several years back where you would sing to God exactly as if you were singing a love song to a significant other. And if this helps you connect, then great, but personally I can't help but think that our love for Him should be at least a little different from that. When you "fall in love" with someone, I large part of it, I think, is emotion. You feel love for that person.

With God, that "feeling" seems to only scratch the surface. You love God, but saying that you do seems to come second to the way you speak to him, worship him, seek him, and love his creation. I guess my point is this: generally speaking, You could open the car door for your signicant other, help them through rough times, make them dinner, take their car to the shop for them, write them letters, and talk to them on the phone, but if you never speak the words "I love you," they might never know whether you loved them or if you were just a super nice person. On the other hand, I get the feeling that if I communicated with God throughout every day, showed people love the way He would have me show them, and lived a life in keeping with Him, but simply forgot to remind Him by saying "I love you, God," he would not wonder if I truly did.

I may have read a little too much into this and/or let a movie get the best of my "emotions," but I think I may be onto something here, or at least I landed on some scripture that somewhat agrees with me. It seems like God finds "loving Him" and "keeping His commandments" to be very much related, considering He says virtually the same thing numerous times. (Ex. 20:6, Deut. 5:10, Ecc. 12:13). And in Mark 12, I think it is most clear: "Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength." And to me, there might even be a certain reason for the order of this verse. After all, it seems like it starts with the heart--with a feeling. But the more important thing is what you do with that feeling (how you show it with your mind and your strength, for example).

The whole "light under a lamp" idea makes me think that if we feel affection for Christ, but then never do anything but let ourselves be in love with God, we've gone wrong somewhere.

Shine your light and let the whole earth sing,
we're singing for the glory of the risen King