This world is full of various kinds of folk. It would be a very monotonous world if it were not. It is the variety which gives it interest. But many f these different sorts of people do not feel kindly toward other sorts. “We are not congenial,” they say. “I simply cannot stand that girl,” one girl says of another. “Her taste in dress is outrageous, and her giggling and general silliness are intolerable.” The other girl says: “I don’t like that precise person, who never acts naturally nor forgets primness.” And there are deeper dislikes than these.

Now many of these dislikes we cannot help—at first; but they have nothing to do with loving. Loving and liking are different things. Jesus did not say, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye like one another”; but, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another” (John 13:34). Love rises above like, and can exist in spite of dislike.

We like what pleases us. We love what we would please. Liking depends on its object; loving upon its subject. If the person we like changes, we may dislike him, but no change in the person loved can alter love.

Even at its best, liking is a feeble thing, capricious, unreliable; but loving is deep and eternal. It is good enough to speak of liking things, but whether we like persons or not is a matter of small consequence. The real question is, Do we love them?

Source: Youth Messenger ® (USPS 765-030)
Published by the Young People’s Department of the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement General Conference as an educational service for our youth worldwide.
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