Our fast-paced age is rapidly bringing us toward the final outcome of last-day events. The world also understands that something utterly incomprehensible is happening across the globe and will bring us into circumstances that absolutely no one anticipates except those who are waiting for Christ.
Every nation, as though following the same template, is acting out one common scenario of taking measures and restricting freedoms in the struggle against an invisible evil. If terrorism was once the world’s chief enemy, a virus has now been added to it. What an interesting confrontation! According to Bible prophecy, we who seek oil for our lamps in order to be a light to those who will kill us will become the world’s next enemies.
What a remarkable situation. The world is preparing everything to kill me, while I dream of having enough time to save someone else from this world so that these people may live forever. Although I cannot help everyone, if even one person’s life becomes better and Eternal Life is born within him through faith in Jesus, this will be God’s greatest work, extending throughout Eternity.
Amid all these preparations for the end, one particular feature can be traced: the relationship between you and me.
All these lessons are good in themselves, but their essence comes down to this: someday you and I will meet so that we may personally discover that the School of Agape Love also has a practical part to its curriculum. We will begin putting all the principles we have studied into practice and recognizing the presence of love within them.
I am the one writing or reading these lines, and you are the one who will allow me into your life in order to understand how the agape love received from God can be passed on to another person.
Without you, my friend, love cannot be love. It has nothing from which to be reflected. It will travel toward you endlessly until it reaches the surface of your soul and reflects whatever appears within its spectrum of colors.
I cannot say very much about myself, but I am who I am, and so far I do not have another self like me. I possess outward ways of expressing myself, inward qualities of the soul, and spiritual potential that I preserve for you. But I cannot give you all of this immediately and without reservation, because I do not know who you are in your knowledge and acceptance of me. Yet I know myself very well and understand certain qualities of which no one else is even aware.
You are a completely unpredictable person. I may have known you for a very long time and known you very well, or I may know you without knowing you at all. You may enter my life merely to pass through it and leave forever without even leaving a trace. Or you may drop anchor and build a house nearby so that you can always remain close.
You may be kind, evil, indifferent, interesting, helpful, critical, friendly or unfriendly—anything at all—and I do not plan to remake you. But your unique quality of being yourself belongs exclusively to you.
Yet you are extremely important and interesting to me. God did not create me for loneliness, but for you. I know that you have the same purpose. We need only find one another, unite in friendship, and bind it all together with love. I can try to do this alone, but without you this undertaking will not stand.
My knowledge of God’s love—of its power and strength—will help me give you hope and confidence in the real me, a faithful person who is close to you. If you accept my efforts and give me reason to place my hope in you, then with all the fullness of my abilities, I will be able to shower you with my modest proposals for making your life better and more interesting.
The possibility that you possess similar knowledge of love and are searching for me in order to love me is very small. Yet I am the one searching for you, and I can give you more than you imagine. Although I desire to receive such responses, I cannot count on them, or my life may become one continual disappointment. But you have the right to receive from me what I possess. And I possess love. I do not produce it; I receive it from God in order to give it away. There is no greater joy for me than seeing and understanding that this love has been accepted, that someone needs it, and that someone desires it.
When I have an opportunity to share myself and give my whole self through it, I do so joyfully, expecting to receive you in return. You are the answer to my ‘I,’ so that we may become ‘we.’
But you are free, and so am I. We may attend the same church for years, greet each other politely, help one another, and sometimes even visit on special occasions, yet remain strangers. If I move away, you may not even call to learn how I am doing.
But I am open to friendship. The windows and doors of my soul are open so that anyone who desires may enter. Although I have been taught to be cautious and always try to understand what casual visitors need, I am not so closed off that I must be avoided.
It is difficult for me to expect or demand openness from you. It must arise within you on its own. I cannot even ask you to notice me and understand that for now I am yours conditionally, but I am capable of becoming yours unconditionally. I am what love is making me, and love needs you. It knows that many people do not believe in the theory of love and demand actions. Therefore, it desires to come in person and accomplish a great work by joining you and me in one friendship, developing and strengthening it, and carrying it into Eternity.
My desire to draw near to you is constant. Even when I am tired, extremely busy, or occupied with certain matters, do not be afraid. This is not a reason for me to reject you forever. It may simply be a temporary experience of dealing with everyday matters that I am trying to resolve without you.
I enjoy dreaming about you and wondering how our friendship will develop. I simply rejoice in everything I will discover within you when your heart sees a friend in me and opens to meet me, granting access to the countless treasures hidden in the depths of your untamed soul.
You are the person I can take with me into Eternity if your faith gives you the right to this Eternal Life. Imagine it: throughout Eternity, we will be able to continue discovering one another and sharing our knowledge with each other, so that through the unending ages of eternal life we may glorify God for how wonderfully we are made!
Although I am who I am and there is only one of me on the entire planet, there are very many of you. You are everywhere. I need only stop you, catch your attention, awaken your interest, and wait to see what you will do with me. I want to be yours not only for resolving temporary tasks and paying current bills, but as someone who has become part of your friendship and your life.
Do not think that I am now trying to start a family. That is a special subject, and there is room there for only two selfish people—her and me; a third would be one too many. But you are the one who surrounds me on every side and will never be unnecessary. I will never tell you that my heart is overflowing with friends and that there is simply no place in it for you. You do not need to think so poorly of me; that is not who I am.
Do you recognize yourself in this lesson? Do you believe that it was written personally for you, my friend? You did not ask me to say these things or force me to open my heart. I made this decision myself because my love desires to do something for you. You deserve this simply because you are a human being. I know that you will read this, smile, read it once more, and forget it like a good fairy tale for adults. But I have written the truth.
Bible Verses for Reflection
Psalm 119:61, 95, 165; Proverbs 10:12; Romans 5:5; 8:38–39; 12:9; 13:8–10; John 13:34–35; 15:12; Mark 12:30–31; Ephesians 4:15; 1 Corinthians 10:24; 16:14; Jude 1:2; 2 Timothy 1:7; Matthew 5:44; Colossians 3:14; 1 Peter 4:8; 2 Thessalonians 3:5; 1 John 4:7–8, 20–21; 2 Corinthians 13:11.