So today is a holiday of sorts. All over, people are getting heart shaped boxes of sweets and Hallmark cards that range from the sappy to the hilarious. While I am not supporting or condemning this holiday, it does make me reflect on love and all the craziness it brings out in us. When I think of love, I immediately think of music (oops, my wife. I also think of her . . .of course). It seems to me that love is best expressed through song. The majority of our favorite tracks to belt out have some sort of love vibe to them. Perhaps no one is currently greater at that than Adele. Sunday at the Grammys, Adele helped me to understand a little more about what love is.
Love is persistent. Last year, Adele’s performance was unusually “off”. She is more than likely the best voice in popular music and is able to give even hipster kids goosebumps. She, for whatever reason, had trouble in front of her audience though. This year, it would have been easy for her to sit out of the limelight. She didn’t however. The first performance is always reserved for something special and becomes the pacesetter for the entire evening. There Adele was singing “Hello”. Love never holds on to the past but only looks to the next moment in which it can create and console. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1Corinthians 13:7)
Love is messy. As an English performer, George Michael was next to a deity for artists like Adele. When she was called to perform a tribute on a global stage, the pressure was great. With nerves aplenty, she fought through for the first few moments until she realized her weakness. She couldn’t go on. She needed a restart. We will never be masters of love no matter how hard we try. Sometimes we need grace. We need to apologize to our audience and ask for it humbly. Sometimes our love is flat and sometimes it makes us curse inexplicably, but these moments are what endears us to those around us. It is in our modest moments of humanity that we find great love and earn the respect of fallen people. Her performance was not remembered as a failure but as a touching and moving tribute. It’s not how you start, but how you finish. 4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant (1 Corinthians 13:4)
Love seeks the best for others. There it was, the end of the evening and who do we see again but our favorite English artist receiving the award of the night. In a show of classic humility, Adele used the time not to promote her own hard work and craft, but to celebrate another artist she thought deserved the award more, Beyonce. It is human nature to steal the spotlight when it is close, it is something else entirely to bring someone with us when the stage is ours. As lovers, we must learn to extol and promote the ones who we love in a way that doesn’t celebrate us. This is humility of the greatest order. It helps to remember that love is a gift and therefore deserving to no one. The avenue of the greatest love is choice. Choosing to love when it is uncomfortable, unexpected, and even undeserved is the sign of a Christ follower. May we be marked by such love. 7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:7-8)
Matt simon blog 