Do-loved versus Be-loved

“Love is the best work.”- Seven-year-old Bree

While browsing through a social media feed, I saw a post of a friend who is a mother and has a child of around seven years old. The child at a very young age seems to display a talent in writing and wordsmith. Her little girl wrote in a piece of paper, “Love is the best wrok (I assume she meant work not wreck).” It made me smile and affirmed my thoughts deeply.

Since I just moved to a new city, newfound and old friends ask me about what I do. Depending on my mood in a rather slow and long or fast and enumerated tone, I share the lists of the things I do and the projects I juggle. One of them said, “Wow, you do a lot of things, you must be earning a lot.” His statement is a bit hard for me to believe because I feel that I am yet doing less and that my earnings are still less. It actually made me pause and ponder about all these motions I am creating.  What do these activities mean after all? (Oh and all these musings and expenses of a writer!)

I usually have the tendency to be the worst critic of myself and rushing thoughts of insufficiency and negativity would have flooded me. But since I found a God who is love and has shown me step by step, season after season in my life how to love truly and foremost to love myself just as God loves me, I remain grounded that it is not the motions but the moments I’m in which matters most.

The substance of the little quote, “love is the best work” for me is not the label of my work, not the profession, not the position, not the salary, not the earnings, not the accomplishments, not the fame, not the likes nor approvals of my work. What is most significant for me is the spirit of love I put in everything I do. Truth to the point is NOT that I only do for the sake of doing but because of my being- Beloved. I am not Do-loved. I am Beloved.

As Joseph Prince put it, “You are God’s beloved not because of what you do. Christ did everything. He is God’s Beloved. But God put you in Christ. That is why you are “accepted in the Beloved.” And what God said to Jesus, He says to you today: “You are My beloved son. In you, I am well pleased. (Luke 3:22)”

Do-loved
-is frantic in starting and finishing tasks
-is proud of schedules and list of to dos
-is searching fulfilment in accomplishments
-is enslaved by cares and burdens of this world
-is lonely and fear of just being

Be-loved
-is approved and accepted just as is
-is highly esteemed and precious
-is productive and fruitful
-is free and generous to share
-is someone belonged to a Lover

This world we live can hold us into a lot of pressure always to have labels. February is even labelled as “Love Month” and can label people as single, in a relationship, complicated, taken, taken for granted and etcetera. And people get held up in the notion that they must have this some kind of person or form of love to be in… the label. People chase after works with position and prestige instead of putting love into their work; They pursue someone they just want to impress instead of someone to love. People do this and do that to feel loved rather than being just loved- so to speak “Beloved”.

As “Beloved” by God who is love himself, is the best thing ever to celebrate not only this month but for always. Whoever you are and whomever you are with this time around, know that you are loved.  Two thousand years ago, someone offered the love, all of us need. How can you miss a “Love Month” without knowing about His love?

“And this is how God demonstrated His love for us that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” -Romans 5:8

“Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love.” -1 John 4:8

And when you know God who is love… You are indeed His Beloved!

Now you can do the work because Beloved, “love is the best work!”