Wake Up, Look Up

Hello, everyone. Thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weirach. And in today's episode, we're asking the question, is there a secret to love? It's a good question for Valentine's Day.

That's because most of us are not that great at love. Like take marriage for example, the relationship where you're supposed to experience and share the most romantic love. Science tells us only 30% of marriages are actually happy or positive. The truth is love is hard and most of us are not as good at being loving or receiving loving as we wish.

But social scientists are trying to help us get there. Like, for example, social science tells us there are two things that are most important to sharing and receiving love. Can you guess what they are? Well, even if you can't, I won't be able to hear you. This is a one-way podcast, so I'll tell you it's kindness and generosity.

Kindness and generosity are exponential multipliers for receiving and showing love. Life is hard. So when someone comes alongside of us with kindness, or offers to help us in a time of need, or just does something for us, not out of obligation, but because they love us, that really does make a difference. That's because social science will tell us that the most meaningful loving relationships

are the ones where when we experience hard things, the people in those relationships turn towards us, not away from us. Those who respond with contempt to our shortcomings really destroy us. But those who respond to our shortcomings with kindness and generosity, with grace and love, actually change us. And believe it or not, it's not just when times get hard.

Science tells us that when people share your joy, that is actually more meaningful to you than when they share your sorrow. Now, that's interesting to me. It's probably because when things are hard, people tend to, at least in the beginning, be compassionate. We expect that. But when we're experiencing success, we often get jealousy or bitterness or no one noticing. But when someone comes alongside you and says, hey, you're happy and I love you, so I'm also happy,

really is meaningful. Now this is just another example, by the way, of science catching up with biblical wisdom. Because God's been saying this stuff for thousands of years in the scripture. He's been calling us to kindness and generosity, both in who He is, the kindness and generosity He shows us, in the gospel of Jesus laying down His life in kindness and generosity, and in the New Testament teaching of how we are

to love each other. Proverbs 18 tells us the power of words, that a positive, friendly, loving word has the ability to lift someone up, but a devastating, harmful word has the ability to crush them. Probably the best place here to go in the Bible is 1 Corinthians 13. It's that passage on love that is often read in weddings. It's one of those passages that we read so much, I'm not sure we actually pay attention to.

Because when we're told that love is patient and kind and gentle, what it's telling us is that love is a verb. It's not a thing. It's not a thing you catch or a thing you discover. Love is a choice to be kind, to be patient, to be gentle, to respond to someone else's sin and weakness, not with disdain, not with bitterness, but with forgiveness and grace and kindness.

By the way, it's not just a verb, it is the overflow of what we enjoy from God. That's why 1 John and 1 John 4 will say to us that we love because He first loved us. Is there a secret to love? Yeah, it's to drink deeply of the love of God, to let His kindness, His gentleness, His grace, His forgiveness, His patience,

so radically fill our hearts that it spills over into those around us. If we're unhappy in our relationships, especially on a day like today, the answer isn't to go looking for another person because you'll just take you with you into any relationship. The answer is to go to God and drink deeply of His love for you. The immediate consequence of that will not just be your joy, but the joy of everyone around you who's hit.

by the overflow. This episode of Wake Up Look Up was produced by Marcus Cunningham and Holly Andrews. Our topic researcher is Shanna Young. This episode was directed by Rima Saleh. Our podcast coordinator is Holly Andrews. Our production manager and audio wizard is Marcus Cunningham with tech and engineering support from Matthew Adel and Landon Hall. I'm your host, Zach Weirach. Join us for the next episode of Wake Up Look Up.