photo by Jeff Harbin, Life of Riley Photography

Love is a Full-Speed Hug

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What is love? According to Hollywood and greeting card companies, love is something that fills the air every February. Love is a bouquet of roses and a candlelit dinner. Love is romance. When most people hear the word “love,” they think of people who are in love.

Good enough. But when I think of love, I think of something else. Not romance. Not even—forgive me—my beautiful wife. No, I think of the airport.

Due to my side career as an author, I occasionally get invited to speak to church groups or add commentary to a cable TV documentary. These are usually solo trips. It’s fun to meet new people and I’m always a fan of free publicity for my books, but as soon as the trip begins I start counting down the hours until I get home. Being away from my wife and kids is hard. It’s hard for them, and hard for me, too.

Which means the best part about traveling is coming home. Why? Because of the magic that happens when I get off the plane. As soon as I reach the security gate, I look for my kids, waiting at the far end of the terminal in the shadow of the Rick Husband statue. We see each other. Their eyes light up and they burst into an all-out sprint toward their daddy.

I know what to do: take a breath, drop to one knee, and prepare for the flying, four-armed, two-child onslaught. If I don’t brace myself, they’ll knock me over. The best homecomings occur at the receiving end of a running hug.

That is love.

Love is when seeing a person makes you so happy you can’t do anything else but race toward them—without giving a thought to how you look, or whether or not an accidental tackling is imminent.

Because I write books about religion and the Bible, the joy of an arms-wide-open airport sprint always reminds me of a better-known homecoming story. This one was originally told by Jesus. We call it the “Parable of the Prodigal Son,” but don’t let the title fool you. It’s not about the kid. It’s about the dad.

A son asks his father for an advance on his inheritance—in other words, he tells Dad to drop dead. In first-century Jewish culture, such disrespect would have humiliated the father. Many families would have disowned the son right then and there. But this father actually gives the kid the money. The son leaves home, blows the cash on unsavory activities, and ends up broke.

The prodigal shuffles home, a wrecked failure. But wait. “While he was still a long way off,” the parable says, the father saw the son and felt compassion for him. That’s not all, though. “He ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him” (Luke 15:20).

The dad saw the kid from far away. He was waiting for him, peering into the distance for that first glimpse. And then? He launched into a dusty sprint like a happy little kid. He forgot the humiliation. He ignored the financial failure. He overlooked the reckless behavior. All he did was throw himself at the prodigal in a sprinting hug.

That, too, is love.

Romance is an important element of love, and one we rightly celebrate in February. But love is far more than valentines and roses. Love is the joy that erupts at the return of a prodigal son, or traveling dad. Love is what keeps us on the porch, our eyes fixed on the horizon, waiting and hoping and praying.

In the end, love doesn’t care where you’ve been. It doesn’t care what you’ve done. It only cares that you’re home. If you need that kind of love, swallow your pride and return to it. If you can offer that kind of love, then share it—as often as possible.

Find someone you love, open your arms, and run.

by Jason Boyett

Jason Boyett is a professional writer and graphic designer in Amarillo whose latest book, O Me of Little Faith (Zondervan), releases in April. He blogs about faith and culture at jasonboyett.com.