What Is Love? – Discernment In A Day Of Divisiveness

When we speak of love, we are usually referring to one of two things:
1) Charity, a thing which can be internally possessed
-or-
2) The utilization of that thing in action, or to love

The first I have spoken of – it is those strings of light that can be organized within us, also known as truth.  We have also touched on the second, for when we play those strings, or put that love into action, the melodies and harmonies of lived truth are the cause of true joy, happiness, and meaning.

But how can we know this love in action and recognize it from the many ways humans are also capable of acting under the guise of love, when in actuality it is partially or sometimes entirely motivated by selfishness?  How can we detect it in our own actions so that we are not caught in pretend love or perpetual self-deception, robbing ourselves of true happiness and meaning?  Or in other words, how can we detect true love from counterfeit love? 

The Spirit of Discernment

As Joseph Smith pointed out, “nothing is a greater injury to the children of men than to be under the influence of a false spirit when they think they have the Spirit of God.”  We could likewise rephrase our question in more biblical language – how is it that we can try the spirits and know what is truly the Spirit of God, and what comes of darkness?  For we have been warned in the last days that deception will become so rampant and convincing, that even the very elect (or spiritually attuned) can be deceived.  It follows that this spirit of discernment will prove an important if not altogether necessary tool in this prophesied time.

At the close of General Conference this past week, I received a distinct impression that I immediately tried to ignore because it was uncomfortable,  but I have come to realize over time that this impulse to ignore means there is something difficult for my mind to handle and the truth is therefore something important for me to pay attention to.  As I paid attention my heart started to sink. 

I really dislike apocalyptic or doomsday-like claims, they usually just seem too short-sighted or overdramatic. Typically things work out and rarely is there a deep conspiracy beyond the obvious blundering naïveté and selfishness characteristic of mortal weakness.  But despite my desires and resistance, when I was and am honest with myself I see the groundwork paved for something that is troubling me on a deeper level.

Why Must We Learn to Detect Love?

The last few years have become increasingly divisive in the church and I’d say generally across the broader western culture, but the impression that came to me is that it is only the initial rumbling preceding an inevitable clash and seismic shift that is about to occur, and who knows how long the night of these clashes can last before sunrise of truth prevails?  My sense is that this is coming due to underlying ideologies being adopted at an increasing rate that on the surface appear totally adequate, but that are ultimately irreconcilable with the narrative of the Church.

Adding fuel to the fire, and giving the devil his due, there are real problems causing real suffering that currently have no theologically revealed solution, problems these ideologies are addressing where the church is not, and so in many ways filling the void in the midst of real suffering with ideologies that claim to provide answers is very compelling, and perhaps this was inevitable.  Holes in knowledge will eventually be exposed by truth or exploited by hatred given enough time.

But are the answers people are increasingly accepting, truth?  Are they born of love?  Or will they prove a dead end that will cause destruction and heartache for those who fall prey to the enticement of easy answers?  It’s complicated, and that’s the real issue, and why I think a battle for the heart preceded by increasing tension is coming, significant enough that I think it will try the faith of some of the best among us.

It is in that spirit that I have decided to create this series, I wish to share some insights that I have had on this topic of true love versus counterfeit love, to provide my family and friends with tools that I believe will help in navigating and discerning the spirit of truth and love in a time of confusion and division.

Light Shining on Darkness

A Starting Key

I want to start this off at a high level, and share with you something that I learned in prayer, a principle and key that has been invaluable for me in detecting truth and love.  What I learned and subsequently observed over and over again since that time is that love is motivated by light cleaving to light, or truth to truth.  The light we are drawn to, the spark of the divine that others possess is the very same light we also possess at our deepest level, which as discussed last post is the inherent and unchangeable source of our infinite value. 

And because of this, here is the grand key – true love of self or true love of others will inherently and simultaneously manifest itself as love of both because the light in one cannot be loved without loving the light in the other. As it is the nature of light, which we are, it can be no other way. 

Counterfeit love on the other hand, as we will explore more in subsequent posts, is really good at mimicking one or the other, but will find a very difficult time acting as both.  If you can remember only one thing, I hope you will remember this key, because I think it can change your outlook and ability to discern truth in the midst of contention and the loud competing voices that threaten to drown out peace and hope. 

What I would like to do is build upon this principle to create more nuanced models of reality that I believe can hone in and magnify our ability to recognize true love from counterfeit love, and then explore some specific examples to make the principle more concrete. Stated another way this can arm us with the ability to detect whether the influences we feel are coming from the Spirit of God or of a devil masked as angel of light.  And I believe these principles can not only help us improve our discernment as we navigate our faith and religion, but can extend to our navigation in the world generally and to all our interpersonal relationships – for all good things are founded on truth. 

Some of the modeling may take some time to really absorb properly, but ultimately I think you will see a simplicity to it and find it worth the effort.  After building the foundations up, we will use what we have learned to illuminate and detect love in a couple common areas of life we are likely all familiar with – male and female pair-bonding relationships as well as conservative and liberal political beliefs, which pattern can then be used with religious principles and beliefs, or any other principle of truth.

In Part 2 we will begin developing and exploring some of these models.