Spontaneous Love

An athlete, I participated in high school track.  My main event was the 880 yard run (now known as the 800m) or ½ mile run.  On occasion, however, I had to compete in the long jump and high jump events.  There’s an art to the running-start, I learned; you get the rhythm going in your head then you run with that same rhythm!

Have you ever considered spontaneous love?  It’s foundational characteristic is that it is not premeditated – it just happens, shows up automatically.  In truth, however, love doesn’t always work like that; we have to get a “running-start” to love some people and some things.  Oswald Chambers says, “The springs of love are in God, not in us.”  Oh, how we forget the natural man until love DOESN’T show up when it should: a driver cuts us off, the cashier is snappy, someone puts an empty tea pitcher back in the refrigerator.  Where’s the love then?  Evidence of God’s love in us shows Itself without warning or announcement. “And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:5)  That’s the rhythm of love, a strong and repeated pattern empowered solely by God’s Spirit poured into our hearts and spilled forth in daily living. There’s no running-start necessary – it’s spontaneous!