God is love - Lessons from a Colombian drama

 'Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. '

1 John 4:7-8

OK, I have to come clean. Don't judge me but I have been watching a Colombian TV series recently and talking about learning lessons from unexpected places. The whole series is about 3 brothers who went out for revenge on a family when they felt their sister was unjustly pressured to her death by the family. And as you have it with dramas, the brothers end up falling in love with the three sisters. The mother of the sisters hates the 3 brothers, calling them 'thugs', 'criminals' and other names. In turn, the mother would do almost anything to keep her daughters away from the brothers, even if it means hurting and cause harm to her own daughters.

Alright! I am coming to a point with all this. One of the lessons I learned in watching this drama play out, is the love of the mother. Now, the love she has for the daughters isn't bad. On the contrary, she loves them a great deal but it is tinted, loped-sided, and skewed from a love that protects to destructive. There is a scene when the eldest brother and the eldest sister comes to the house to settle the wedding plans. The mother makes a comment, ".. one day you will realise that everything I did was for your own good..", when the grandfather responded, ".. at least WHAT you thought was for their own good.."

Even though the intention of the mother is good; in the end, the love she gives was always about her. The fear of losing her daughters, instead of the opportunity of gaining sons; fear of losing grandson, instead of the opportunity a loving father for her grandson - a different perspective. The overprotective and overbearing love leads to a destructive love that tore apart the family.

What does this have to do with the Bible? I got me thinking about the verse "... God is love." As humans, I guess it is natural that we love in response or in expectation of something in return. And even though our intention is good to start off with, we often get caught the imbalance of love leading to a corruption of what love is. Even throughout the series, the love with the brothers and sisters, the pressures and expectations from the different sides as it swings back and forth.

This had me thinking about God and the love He gives. There isn't an expectation or a response to something we did, it is pure and unconditional. He loves me as I am, with my good and bad points. There is no forcing me to change something because He is not happy with it, on the contrary, He celebrates the uniqueness of who He has called me to be. He will guide, show me, and help me in my change, but not force me to do so. How often do we say we love someone but "hey, you have to change this and that." As it says in Matthew, we see the speck in others' eyes but miss the plank in our own eyes.

The other thing that jumps out at me is God's love is balance. True love, I realised from the series isn't overbearing or overprotective or overly liberated or over anything for that matter. We always what to do what is right for our love ones, but our views can be a little tinted from our experience, life, wants, etc. But God isn't that. He doesn't have the needs and wants like us, so the love is balance. For example, He has the power to make us to do right? But yet, He allows us to makes our path even though there are mistakes. So look at a baby learning to walk. We know that the baby will fall and cry. But if we keep carrying the baby, because we know he/she will fall - is that true love? To rob the child the opportunity to grow and get strong because we can't bear to see he/she struggle? No. God's love is balance. He protects without over-protecting, gives freedom without overly-liberated, guides without being overbearing. Love despite my faults and failures. That's love. Everlasting love, isn't it?