If I decide to master some field of knowledge, what is required for this? Suppose, for example, that I decide to become a doctor. I go and buy an anatomy textbook, read it, try to memorize some terms, and study the illustrations carefully. Now I am already an expert—or at least this is better than nothing. I can consider myself a doctor. And in order to become a professor of medicine, I must read a couple more books about the structure of certain organs, memorize all the definitions, and then I can teach others. Practice itself will then show what is located where in the human body. And thanks to YouTube, I can also see everything firsthand, then open my own channel and share my knowledge with other people.
In this way one can study everything useful and necessary, as long as there is a desire.
I think this approach brought a smile to your face. In one word: an amateur.
Yet when I approach the study of love and friendship with a similar attitude, for some reason I begin to consider myself someone special and my knowledge in this area to be higher mathematics. I enjoy hearing myself called a teacher, but I assume the appearance of a modest person and ask not to be called that, while inwardly agreeing that this is exactly what I am. For if all my knowledge were taken into account, in God’s eyes I would look like a three-year-old child who has managed to learn something but has imagined that he knows everything. Of course, such behaviour in children does not irritate their parents but brings a tender smile to their faces, because they know what a path of growth their children still have to travel. Parents gently take their children in their arms and assure them of their love, telling them that they are the very best.
Certainly, the conditions of our learning differ from a child’s growth. We are in a real war, where souls are perishing all around us. Our lives are in constant mortal danger. Yet through God’s protection and the continual ministry of angels, we are still alive and have peace in our hearts.
When I gain a friend, what do I desire to discover in him for myself? Who is my friend to me? And if this is the person with whom I intend to start a family, what should I know about that person? It is very important to understand what my friend or life companion is like, because my attitude toward that person depends on it.
Let us take the example of a family. If I am attracted only to my wife’s body, then once it becomes mine, it will please my flesh and delight my senses, and this attitude will dominate. As a reward for this gift, I will earn money to invest in the source of my sensual pleasures, adorning it with clothing, cosmetics, and garlands. But this is a person, not a Christmas tree. And this body has a soul that also needs to be discovered and longs to be wanted. In order to study it, I must change my priorities.
If I decide also to discover a master chef in my wife, my knowledge in this area will increase noticeably, and I will marvel at the wonders of her cooking and praise her for this labour. But one day I will understand that the cook has a soul that languishes with the desire to be discovered and understood. So I decide to know her as the mother of our children. Oh, how much new knowledge awaits me, and how much happiness these little people bring into the home! Yet they too have souls that thirst to be explored and personally known. Meanwhile, my wife has grown weary in the routines of daily life as a body, a cook, and a nanny. Her heart longs for more; it desires to open, but it can do so only in response to my request and interest. If I stop in this process of knowing her, family disputes and fault-finding begin. All the unused inner potential is spent on resolving family problems. Against this background, my wife’s body grows older, while so many beautiful, smiling bodies appear all around that the temptation to choose one of them becomes very great.
I choose faithfulness and decide to discover a creative personality in my wife. How much new knowledge I have gained about this person! And this is only the beginning. I begin to wonder: who is before me? A woman, a mother, a cook, a database, a decorated house, a city with its attractions, or an entire planet that longs for new discoveries? Who is this friend of mine to me? And who am I to my wife? A body, a taxi driver, a cash machine, a porter, a handyman? I too have a soul that longs to open. Within me too lies the unlimited potential of an entire planet that remains to be explored. Yet I do not even understand who I am. I fulfil the role of a doormat for wiping feet and serve as a means of life support. Life passes, and we fly onward. And when we lose each other along the way, we begin to understand how little we came to know and how little we allowed ourselves to be known.
And if I have gained a friend, who is he to me? How should I perceive him? My interest in him will develop within the boundaries of communication that I establish for him and for myself, yet it is possible to go further.
To help me answer all these difficult questions, love is offered to me. It knows how to break through the surface of a person’s soul and find the useful minerals and inexhaustible resources in the depths of the heart. I discover a new microcosmic world of my friend’s possibilities and marvel at the discoveries of his personality. I am captivated by this world of limitless possibilities and by the way love finds new and fascinating treasures of the soul and presents them in their true light.
God created us for one another as unexplored planets, so that in our love for one another we may rejoice in new discoveries and achievements. Love makes all this real and beautiful. Only eternity will be able to contain the fullness of our endless revelations about one another, so that after many, many millions of years I may say of one of my friends that I know him even as also I am known. And all these revelations will resemble playing in a sandbox compared with the true knowledge of God, Who throughout endless eternity will reveal Himself to us in all His love and beauty, showing the amazing mysteries of His Soul, which I have already begun to know by faith while living on a sinful earth in a perishable body.
All this is embedded in each of us, and at times we unconsciously seek someone who will begin to uncover it, draw it out, and delight in knowing it. Even if someone finds within me only a little house with decorative flourishes, I already rejoice that at least in this form I have become interesting to someone. The prospect of being a lifelong taxi driver and cash machine does not bring much joy to the soul.
But who will discover a planet within me? I know that there is such a Friend. His name is Jesus. I come to Him and throw my soul open before Him so that I may be discovered and known, and He digs into my heart with interest, astonishing me with what He finds. I had no idea that I could possess such potential for different abilities and useful qualities.
And yet unexplored planets surround me as well, concealing so many fascinating things within them. Only my love will be able to find and uncover them. How wonderfully we are made! And what a beautiful commandment of love has been given to us! We can discover new galaxies and explore one another endlessly without ever reaching the fullness of knowledge and discovery. Yes, we certainly cannot do without eternity here! Eternity is worth entering and living in.
God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, the holy angels, my holy friends, and I myself—this is a very good team for eternal discoveries and achievements.
Homework 140
What did you discover for yourself in this lesson? Can a person consider himself an expert after reading lessons about love and friendship? What is required to become one? Who is your friend? In what capacity do you perceive the person close to you? What advantages does love open to us in friendship? What does the Discoverer of the soul expect from us? Does He have a dream for our friendship? Would you like to labour on God’s team for eternal discoveries and achievements? Please read Jeremiah 33:3; 32:27, 39–40; 15:19; Proverbs 11:25; 2:4–5; 1 John 3:1–3; Psalm 139:23; 1 Corinthians 13:12; Romans 15:14; and James 1:22 in the light of this lesson.