A few weeks ago I finished Charles Dicken’s David Copperfield.  It offers an interesting look at true love vs selfishness.  (Friendly warning: this post includes numerous spoilers….)

Let’s start with selfishness.  Mr. Murdstone claims to love people, but he only wants to control them and make them like himself.  Steerforth claims to love people but only to get what he wants.  Uriah Heep claims to be humble, but only as a disguise for his selfish grasping plans.  All three make great claims, but obsessed with themselves they leave a trail of human wreckage.

How different is real love.  Mr. Peggotty gives up everything to travel all over Europe in search of his adopted daughter whom Steerforth has lured away.  Like Jesus, he goes to great lengths to seek and save one who is lost.  And then there is Agnes who loves Copperfield, and stands by him through thick and thin even when he marries another.  Neither Agnes nor Mr. Peggotty have any promise of return, but both give of themselves for those they love.

Dicken’s characters have real life counterparts.  In the “novel” of life, we undoubtedly know both types of people to various degrees.  But the real question is:  what kind of character are we?  The character who talks a good talk but is obsessed with self no matter who is hurt?  Or the character who speaks with self-giving actions even to his own hurt?

“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.  But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?  Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”
– I John 3:16-18