Love!

We have all heard of Amazon, quite often people’s go-to place for purchases of one sort or another and often delivered the very next day. But do you know what this is – ‘Amazon’s cloud based, voice activated artificial intelligence assistant used to control smart home devices, play music, set reminders and answer questions’? It is better known to us as ‘Alexa’, the name you don’t use unless you want to hear from her, him, it, or whatever!
 
I know many of us have an Alexa in our homes and it is quite useful for carrying out various instructions. Often at Roots Café we hear the call, “set timer for ten minutes” and then it responds with some sort of noise at the due time. Moving on, as development takes place, we now have “Alexa Plus” which means we can hold some sort of conversation with the little box and get told to leave the house early on a journey, based on traffic conditions, or it remembers preferences, such as dietary conditions when you prepare your shopping list. I guess all this is to improve and enhance our daily lives - isn’t it?!
 
But interestingly, with all its clever bits and pieces, I asked Alexa if she loved me and to see what would be the reply. The answer came back, “There are people I admire and there’s things I can’t do without, but I am still trying to figure out human love”.
 
Aren’t we just grateful that our Father God gave us Jesus to be fully man, to dwell among us and to experience emotions such as joy, anguish, laughter, tears and yes, human compassion and love. God created us and completely understands and knows us and all our emotions. Father God knows the true depth of love in this, “Greater love has no man than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:13. We are God’s friends and in Jesus He gave His life for you and me. Not only that, but Psalm 136:1 tells us, “His steadfast love endures forever”.
 
My thinking is, that whatever we build or make, like Alexa or even Alexa Plus, we can never create that perfect love. As 1John 4:16 puts it, “God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” This day and everyday we stand in the Light of God’s love.