What’s Love Got To Do With It?

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If you remember Tina Turner, she sang about it in the 1980s–What’s Love Got to Do with It? The answer is—love changes everything. Without love, we lose meaning, purpose, hope, healing, and peace.

When Love Fades to the Edges

It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the absence of love in our world. Everywhere we look, the key ingredient of life—love—seems to be missing. We hear and read it in the harshness of words, we see it in cruelty toward one another, and we sense it in the indifference we often wear like armor. Love seems to have receded to the edges of life.

Where We’ve Been Planted

But I long for more evidence of love in our world. Perhaps you do too. I often feel like I can’t make much of a difference; maybe you feel the same way. However, the Lord gently reminds me: you can influence the plot of land where you’ve been planted. 

Our “plot of land” is simply our circle of influence—our home, our work, our school, our neighborhood, our church, even the clubs and communities we belong to. What we choose to cultivate in that space is what will flourish.

What We Cultivate Matters

A garden doesn’t grow by accident. It thrives because someone has paid attention and poured in time, care, and love. Without it, neglect quickly shows. With it, blossoms abound. In the same way, the soil of our daily lives only bears fruit when it is tilled with love.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux once said, “What we love, we shall grow to resemble.” If we love the world, we will look and act like the world. But if we set our gaze on God, giving Him our love, our attention, and more of ourselves each day, then we will begin to resemble Him. 

Love at Work in Us

When we resemble the Lord, our little plot of land is filled with blooms of love, goodness, tenderness, patience, empathy, compassion, mercy, and peace. And those whose feet cross our little plot will be blessed by the Lord’s presence and the love of Christ flowing through us. 

One Encounter at a Time

What does love have to do with it? Everything—for love is the garden where God Himself chooses to dwell—and the world does change, one encounter, and one person at a time.

Reflection

• Where is the Lord calling you to resemble Him just a little more?
• Who is the Lord wanting to invite into your plot of land?