When a person is born into this world, he is a blank page upon which will be written what he will become, what he will know, and what he will believe. The first convincing information I receive in childhood and throughout my life shapes my opinions, will, and intellect.
Our world is filled with all kinds of sciences and knowledge that shape society’s mentality. The film and entertainment industry has made an enormous contribution to the formation of our consciousness, values, and priorities. We call all of this culture.
The modern concept of love has become so distorted in people’s understanding that we use this word for feelings, infatuations, passions, nostalgia, appetite, personal interests, and views. When someone speaks about love, we attach no special importance to it and do not even listen carefully to what is being discussed.
School curricula contain no science of love and friendship that is taught to us from childhood. No one instills in us a culture of agape love. Yet we sometimes read books about it, watch movies, and listen to stories. What we have allowed into our minds has become our personal opinion, established upon whatever we were persuaded to believe. Changing an opinion is far more difficult than forming one.
If diesel fuel is poured into a clean barrel and the barrel is then washed thoroughly, it will continue giving off that original smell of diesel fuel for the rest of its existence, and nothing will ever make it suitable for anything useful.
And so, carrying my store of knowledge and life experience, I enter the School of Agape Love to learn what is taught there. Strange things are placed into my ears—things my mind cannot contain and that contradict many of my ideas. My entire understanding of love appears to have been turned upside down, and I begin to grasp the simple truth that I do not possess this agape. This may make me indignant, and I may proudly hold my head high and leave this strange community with dignity. If I do not understand how eternal love differs from what I already possess and call love, I will not remain within the walls of this School either. And when the revelation finally reaches me that learning the science of love will take my best time—or occupy all my time throughout my entire life—I begin to feel uneasy. Is it worth studying something to which I must devote my whole self?
If Christ had not commanded us to love one another, I would have lost interest in studying love long ago. But the message of the Faithful Witness assures me that love makes me an overcomer. Understanding this, I no longer want to go anywhere, but I need greater revelations. If I am going to learn, then I will truly learn!
As I study the theory of a science that is new to me and allow it to shape my mind, I understand that I am coming into contact with something great and inaccessible that I did not previously know. Through the knowledge of agape love, God gradually reveals His character to me and displays His beauty and purity from many different angles.
At a certain point in my education, I decide to gain practical knowledge of love and begin looking for someone with whom I can enter into mutual love. Naturally, the School of Love contains more potential friends than the world does. Knowing the foundations and principles, I take an important step and offer my love and friendship to my new friend while awaiting his decision. If the person with whom I am speaking understands what I mean and agrees, we plunge into the unexplored worlds within each other and begin comprehending the practical part of the science of love, trying to apply all the knowledge we have received. As a result, I realize that I do not know how to love or be a friend. This is foreign to my human nature. I do not know where to begin or how to continue the relationship, yet I see it taking shape and acquiring particular forms and boundaries. My friend’s free will continually places obstacles before me or opens the endless expanses of his soul, into which I must enter with all my baggage and remain forever. I learn to love while living in the heart of this love. There is no road back, but I do not know where to go next or what to do with my friend. I ask God to teach me and fill my heart with love, and He answers, though not always in the way I want.
My friend has a character—and quite a character at that. Sometimes he thinks in an entirely different way, and his opinion may completely contradict my worldview. And I am supposed to love this wonder? There is no other way. I step over myself, break something within my heart, and continue forward. Although the love between us is pure and comes from the holy Source of heavenly power, we ourselves are imperfect and weak. Yet Jesus teaches those who open to His knocking and His voice how to love.
At first, all of this interests me; then it becomes fascinating. But when I go very deep, I realize that I do not know where to go next or how to develop what has reached the dead end of my understanding. By the world’s standards, I would abandon everything at the first crossroads and run back into the world of my Hollywood illusions. But something great and inaccessible draws me onward. I cry out, and the Lord opens new doors before me so that I may immerse myself in my friend’s world, enriching him with my love and being enriched by what my friend gives me.
My friend is not a child prodigy or an extraordinary genius. He is also learning to love me and does not know what to do with me when I share my distinctive traits with him or show him my accomplishments in friendship.
Oh, if only someone had taught us this science in childhood, how easy it would be for us now to enter the depths of the revelations within our hearts! Yet I cannot say that loving a friend is difficult. It is not difficult; it is extremely interesting and enlightening. The challenge in loving one another is that your friend’s soul is like an open textbook on quantum physics written in Chinese. You see endless expanses of incomprehensible resources and knowledge being given to you, while understanding that you understand nothing. And your friend waits for you to decipher the book and tell him about himself.
It becomes very interesting. I do not know myself as well as a friend can come to know me. He studies my character from within me, translates the features of my inner design into understandable language, and then presents this to me as another revelation. My soul is the same kind of mysterious book in an incomprehensible language for my friend, yet it is open for investigation. I am a mysterious world that my friend must decipher, and I see the same thing in him. The more we love and come to know one another in love, the more convinced we become that we do not know how to love or be friends. But this does not trouble us, and we continue mastering this science.
How wonderful it is to love one another! If I could wish the most wonderful thing for you, it would be that you set out upon this path of unending joy and blessings and taste for yourselves that the Lord is good.
Each new friend is no longer frightening to me. I have the experience gained from my previous discoveries, and I joyfully bring it into a new relationship. Although the new friend’s heart also opens, the open book of his soul is now a textbook on nuclear physics written in Japanese—a language I must also learn.
The practice and theory of love together accomplish something amazing in our relationships. As we comprehend this science from within ourselves, we begin to love one another. This is so wonderful that words simply cannot describe all the advantages of such study.
Bible Verses for Reflection
Jeremiah 33:3; Ecclesiastes 12:11–14; 1 Peter 1:22; 2:17; 3:8; John 6:45; 13:34–35; 2 Peter 1:5–10; Proverbs 17:17; Romans 12:9–10; 1 Thessalonians 4:9; Hebrews 13:1; Isaiah 43:4; 1 John 1:7; 4:7–8.