You don't have to remember love

Often we forget things, but you don't forget what you don't have to remember.

I took a professional development course on memory today, and it was interesting to discuss our minds and how they process the information we are given. Memory is a tricky thing. There are sometimes things that we can easily recall, and there are some things that truly make us struggle as we try to dig into the backs of our minds and pull out information that was once fresh in there. I'm sure there is some scientific explanation for all of this.

I hate science.

When I was in college at Texas A&M, I took a required biology class and hated every second of it. I think one reason I don't like science is because I'm so bad at it. I can spout off random dates and names of the historical context, I can even recall many mathematical formulas that I won't ever use in my daily life, and I can tell you countless sports statistics that might not carry as much importance in your life as they do in mine, but in no easy manner can I tell you any part of the Krebs Cycle or what molecular compositions are. I don't how the eukaryotic cell separates chromosomes during mitosis, and I am not interested in exploring the topic any further.

I will never know this.

But, because I never remembered any scientific information, I never fully understood the material, and so I didn't do as well in my science classes as I would have preferred. And, needless to say, I was useless in all of the labs. Thank goodness TAs supervise those and then grade your lab reports. They were a bit more lenient in grading than my professor was on my tests.

And I still don't even know how to use a microscope. (I promise I'm not an idiot—I actually made really good grades in the other subjects.)

The great thing about love is that you don't have to memorize anything to be able to experience it. There's no specific formula, there's no definitive process, and you don't have to develop a headache trying to bring back information you once "learned."

It's way simpler than that: just love.

The way we treat others should come naturally to us, and I think memory sometimes hinders that. If someone has wronged us in the past, and we let those memories resurface, we might not be so inclined to love that person.

And that's not a good thing.

When it comes to love, I think there are times when it's better to have no memory at all. When Jesus died on the cross for us, He used a giant "delete" button to remove the stains of sin forever from our lives. Those sins are forgotten—they're not going to be drawn up from memory and used against us.

So why should we not do the same?

Obviously I'm not saying memory is useless. I memorize things all of the time. I even know random license plates (I'm honestly not a creeper). I love seemingly useless information that's stored in people's minds and sporadically pops up in fitting situations.

But you don't have to memorize anything to know how to love.

You can repeat all of the Bible verses you want—and they are definitely good to know by heart—but if you don't actually know how to live out what Jesus preached and modeled, then it's all for naught. Love is an action, so just do it with a clear mind.

And once you know how to love, you're not going to forget it.