It's Greek for unconditional love.....I love to teach about it, I wrote about it here a few years ago.
Here's the definition in my Bible Dictionary...
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| From The Complete Word Study Dictionary New Testament, by Spiros Zodhiates, page 878.
This was life-changing for me when I learned that God's unconditional love doesn't mean that He always does what I want. I began to learn to cut out the manipulation prayers {I promise I will________, if YOU will __________ }. I began to stop letting little bits of the lie that bad things, slow things, uncomfortable things in my life meant that God's love was conditional or worse, insufficient or inattentive, have place. I found comfort in the boundary that God loves me for my best. Period. So, I've applied this lesson as the child being loved by the parent. This week I learned to apply this lesson as the parent loving the child. When it comes down to it, will I love my kids for their best even when they don't want that?
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As I began to realize that I had allowed some safe boundaries in our family to get a little bit too broad, I knew what I needed to do. The knowing wasn't the hard part, the doing was. Little crops of entitlement and selfishness had grown up in the lives of my children because I hadn't been disciplined enough to keep them out of my own yard. And pulling them up was easily the right thing until my teenaged kids were standing over them, guarding.
I'm usually a pretty decisive mother. I won't make a decision about vacation or where to eat or what color couch to buy.....but when it comes to discipline and my kids, I'm pretty swift and sure. Until they turned into teenagers.
- Could it be the knowledge that young adult grown-up life is just around the corner has robbed me of confidence?
- Could it be fear of losing their childhood favor has made me wary to confront?
- Could it be regret over mistakes made and lessons untaught has slowed my zeal for creative instruction?
- There are lots of "could it bes"....and they were kicking my tail.
And then I remembered Agape {Benevolent} Love,
"Its benevolence, however, is not shown by doing what the person loved {teenager} desired but what the one who loves {parent} deems as needed by the one loved {child}..."
So we had the hard talk, and set the safe boundaries, and answered the honest questions, and made the necessary apologies, and walked away secure knowing we are LOVED.
Sweet mommas reading this; stay true to His course. Receive His benevolent love so that you can pass it along to your children.....they don't always want it, but they need it so much and there is no substitute.
Be Loved so that you can love your beloveds well.
