What is love... Part 2

Well I wanted to update my blog much sooner. However, for the past almost week I've been gone and just recently go back into town. For those of you who are interested, it was a great weekish. So my last blog I left is somewhat of a cliff hanger. So I will attempt to answer what I believe it is to love. Or at least the small understanding that I have from what God has taught me.

I grew up, as I said, in a Mennonite church. While there was a lot of good in my church, there was also some legalism (not isolated to Mennonite churches by any means, just my experience). There was a lot of making sure you do the right things and follow all the right "rules" especially on Sunday. That leads to a whole other topic on a 24/7 Christian life, however, back to my topic that I will actually finish...maybe. All these rules just seemed to lead to judgement. I look at people and what they were or weren't doing. It was almost normal to sit around with friends and just talk about people. "Did you hear what ______ did?" All these things that were just tearing people down, and ultimately, destroying the church. It wasn't until I started to learn what love was that I realized that this was just selfish and wrong. So what did I learn? I learned that I need to see the good in people. I need to see past the things I think. Nowhere in the Bible does it tell me that I should judge my brothers and sisters. It does say I should love. I also realized that Matthew 7:3 was very relevant to my life. I was spending so much time look at others that I missed myself. Often the things that bothered me in others were things I saw in myself. However, what I truly needed to do was learn to love myself and then love others. Love was not seeing what people did wrong, but loving them and caring about them despite it. Once I began to learn that, it was amazing how my attitude towards people changed. I no longer was angry or bitter at them, but I was longing for them to feel loved. It was no longer about what they did or didn't do, but what I could do so that they know I love them. I do not claim that I do this perfect, or even well, but God is working on me still, and forever will be. But learning to see people through God's eyes and not through mine is one of the biggest steps in my faith I think I've ever made. There is so much that can be done and such an impact if we simply loved. Imagine if all those who said they were Christians loved in the way Christ did. What kind of impact would that have? A good place to start is by looking at yourself and to be an example of Christ's love to the world.

On a lighter note, I've graduated college, finally. It only took me five years... Any ideas what to do with my life now?