Active Ingredient

 It's allergy season where I live.  I'm not usually bothered in Spring, but this year I find myself sneezing from time to time because of all the pine tree pollen.  My porch is covered with it!  It's not so bad that I need to take something for it, but for some it's the only relief they have from all the symptoms listed below. . .  

We've been eating organic and natural whole foods for almost 20 years trying to avoid "added ingredients" that are questionable or proven bad for us.  But even the dye-free medication has a host of ingredients that aren't necessary for its purpose of alleviating allergy symptoms.

Alan Cohen writes in his book "A Deep Breath of Life":  "Love is the active ingredient of life, the chemical that makes everything else worthwhile.  You can have all the other amenities, but if love is absent, you are lost.  You can feel victimized or abandoned, but if you add love, suddenly life has meaning again."

This is exactly what Paul the Apostle says about speaking in tongues or having the gift of prophecy, or giving everything you possess to the poor, and even having "absolute faith so as to move mountains."  If he could do all those things, but have not love, he said, "I am nothing." 

Whether you are having to do something you don't  particularly want to do, or be somewhere you'd rather not be, if you do it/be there with love, it will make your time spent meaningful.  Too many times I get so caught up in accomplishing a task, I miss an opportunity to show love to those who cross my path.  Or, I may have to go somewhere that I think is a "waste" of my time, when I could be looking for ways to show love where I'm at!  

Cohen concludes:  "Love is my function.  I am a servant of the heart."  If we all saw love as our function, the world would be in a far better place!  And we'd experience the love that God has made us to be.  

Father, if I finally see that my "active ingredient" is love and let all the "inactive ingredients" fall away, I know that I will find the meaningful life I've been searching for.

Link to scripture:  John 13:34

Take action:  How can I love others like Jesus did?