This weekend’s pearl of wisdom comes from my favourite (though less known) novel by the Russian author Tolstoy, called Resurrection. It is about a man’s spiritual awakening which includes an epiphany about the centrality of love:
“The whole trouble lies in that people think that there are conditions excluding the necessity of love in their interaction with man, but such conditions do not exist. Things may be treated without love; one may chop wood, make bricks, forge iron without love, but one can no more deal with people without love than one can handle bees without care. The nature of bees is such that if you handle them carelessly you will harm them as well as yourself. It is the same with people. And it cannot be different, because mutual love is the basic law of human life. If you feel no love for people, then keep away from them, occupy yourself with things, yourself—anything; only keep away from people. As it is harmful to eat except when one is hungry, so is it harmful to have interaction with people when one does not love them.”
Tolstoy reminds us of the supremacy of love. To love someone is to honour them as sacred. Every person is a sacred child of God. To love a person is to recognise their infinite value and to treat them accordingly.
Ask God to enable you to see the infinite sacred value in others today.
Read 1 Corinthians 13.
