Christian Living

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THE TASTE OF TRUE LOVE - BY OBI FELIX


Love is the common word that connotes something special in all cultures. It is the dominant theme of most contemporary soaps, movies and music. Thousands of love songs rent the airwaves and many hit the highest echelon of music charts yearly. Romantic novels and magazines sell in millions of copies yearly. Internet sites for cross-boundary and cross-cultural lovers abound. For sure, love is a universal language.


To many, love is a sweet feeling that they would always relish. Like the symbolic red rose, it is a pleasant experience that words cannot describe. However, tender words like; sweetheart, honey, beloved, dearie and many others are used to address the object of ones love. But one may ask, does love taste as sweet as it sounds in the ear of the beloved? What with many that got broken -hearted, scathed, jilted, abandoned, cheated, deceived, denied and disconfeited on the account of love?

Do we brush aside the nameless and destitute children who were abandoned by their mothers but were products of a "romance"?


In today’s world, love has been construed as just romance. For sure, romance is good, especially when it’s untainted and pure. In the Garden of Eden, we see romance in one its purest form. Adam the first man had been a loner in the garden but someday God made him sleep after his daily work. To his amazement, when he woke up, a starling and beautiful creature, Eve stood before him. He was stunned and in a spontaneous outburst, he recited extemporously the first recorded romantic verse: " she’s now the flesh of my flesh and the bone of my bones…" And all through the scriptures, we are confronted with passages and verses that are purely romantic. But is love all about romance?


In reality, true love does not taste as sweet as it sounds. When God tried to prove his love to humanity, he sent his only son to the enclave of man. God watched as his son passed through the gruesome and painful death of crucifixion. He felt the pangs and pings of pain in an attempt to love, unlike Abraham whose own son was spared from dying.

In choosing Israel (the Jews) as a special people that will experience his love, God made himself vulnerable to the pains of love. He "suffered" neglect, sacrilege, and spite from his beloved people who remained perpetually unfaithful to him.


Jesus Christ loved humanity, He poured out himself by teaching mankind the principles of God’s kingdom and wisdom for living successfully. He healed men of all manner of culment and sickness. But when the chips were down, the recipients of his love (humanity) denied him. He was beaten, cajoled, mocked, denied, spat upon and eventually murdered by the same recipients of his untainted love. So love goes with pain!


It is evident from human history that those who truly love somehow are made to suffer some pain in their bid to show or give unconditional love. Martin Luther King jr. so loved freedom and hated segregation but the snipers bullets stopped him. Countless missionaries have suffered deprivation or even loss of their lives in their bid to show God’s love to savage and primitive people. Many more have sacrificed pleasure, exalted position and status for the sake of love. If love was all about pleasure and romance, single parents would not have to endure long working hours in order to feed and cater for their wards. Love suffers long in order to love and another. True love suffers some pain but it’s not blind to count the cost knowing that the sacrifice will enrich the life of the beloved eventually. Love may taste bitter but will turn into a sweet experience if given, with no strings attached. Such untainted love is what the world truly needs. So be ready to endure the pain of love if you must love others….not only on valentine day!


Concluding Verse

If the world would learn to forgive

If all could bear with another’s faults

If we can just swallow the hurts and pains

Then we can have a glimpse of love

If sworn enemies would live as friends

If we can shoulder burdens not ours

If we can let our differences unite us

Then can we savour the rich taste of love.


(© Obi Felix, 2001)

Your Nuggetz man

Felix Obi

Lagos Nigeria




Obi Felix C,PT

dept of physiotherapy

national orthopaedic hospital

pmb 2009 yaba lagos

Nigeria

off tel...+2341 4935220(ext 219)

Mobile .+234.803 3187876

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