"Not to show people the all-satisfying God is not to love them. To make them feel good about themselves when they were made to feel good about seeing God is like taking someone to the Alps and locking them in a room full of mirrors." I had to laugh when I read this quote by Piper, because I have seen the Alps. Flying to Germany from France, I found myself looking outside the window of my small plane and could see nothing but the bluest mountains capped with white that ran underneath me and stretched past the edges of the horizon. And well, had I been in the bathroom staring back at myself in the mirror not knowing what was all around me, you could say I would've missed out. 
God is so much greater than what lies within the walls of our homes, the streets mapping our cities, the lands between our oceans. He is so much greater than what our eyes alone can see - especially when staring in the mirror. What a challenge to true love - with the glory and praise of God behind every word and loving kindness. The greatest risk and the greatest dare - all wrapped up and packaged in what Christ would call "love." Too often I am caught over loving others and loving others well, and too often I am entangled with the pride of my own insecurities that cry out to be loved in return. And so what is at the end of my love for those around me? Love for myself in return, or a love for God that brings glory to His Name? My definition of love and what love, in return, looks like, is given by the answer to that question. With a heart full of sorrow and a head bowed in prayer, I hope to love others with the glory of God as the end to the means, and may that hope shape my definition of love as it is acted out among those around me. In this may I be like Christ who loved with the glory of God behind every breath - all the way to his last. | 
