When Love Becomes More Than an Idea

“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
John 17:25–26 NIV

We can know a surprising amount about someone without knowing what it is like to spend an ordinary day with them. We may know their story, their work, even what matters to them. But being with someone over time reveals things information cannot. We discover how they respond when plans change, what brings them joy, and what their love feels like when we need it. Could knowing God involve that same difference, between what we learn from a distance and what we discover through an ongoing conversation with Him, growing more aware of His presence and more responsive to Him in ordinary life?

Near the end of a prayer for His followers, Jesus says, “I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known.” Then He says something far more startling. He asks that the very love the Father has for Him may also be in them. We use the word love so easily that we can miss the size of what He is saying. If the eternal God can be described as love, perhaps we should hear the word less as a familiar emotion and more as a creative power, the active reality of who God is. Jesus is praying that this reality will not remain something we merely know about, but will begin to take shape within us.

If this love begins to take shape within us, knowing God cannot remain a private idea. Peter speaks of our becoming “participants in the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). The same creative power that gives life can open new possibilities in the way we think, feel, choose, and respond. Fear does not have to decide everything. Resentment does not have to remain permanent. Self-protection does not have to be our only instinct. Something new can begin where we had never imagined there was more to discover. Perhaps participating with God means moving from awareness and observation toward a growing willingness to take part with Him.

Perhaps this is where participation becomes more than activity. As we grow more attentive to God, we may begin recognizing His presence and character in moments we once moved through without noticing. That recognition can become an invitation. We are free to take a step toward it, almost experimentally, and discover what happens when we respond. His patience becomes something we experience while learning patience. His mercy becomes clearer as we are drawn into mercy. His creativity becomes visible as we begin seeing what He might make possible through an ordinary life. We do not simply learn more about God. We begin encountering Him as awakened recognition becomes willing participation.

Maybe love becomes real in a whole new way when we discover what happens as we begin responding to it. We are no longer only learning that God loves us. We are beginning to discover where His love can take us.

Prayer

Father, awaken me to Your presence today. Help me recognize Your invitations and freely respond. Let Your love become more than an idea as I discover, with You, where a willing step may lead. Amen.