“All Loves Excelling”
Given by Lloyd Newell

“Sing praise to him ... the fount of love,”¹ for blessings large and small. Love pours down from heaven in the beauties around us. It is the salve that ancients called “the balm of Gilead.” But what of the love we express in our own lives?

A couple walking hand in hand speaks of the romance we call love. That picture is even more endearing when the couple is older and their walk slower than in earlier years. But love is more than just romance. Love is shown through serving one another. It manifests itself in little things that cascade through an otherwise difficult day.

Our founts of love are made up of a drop of this and a drop of that. Think how a hug from a grandchild, a simple phone call from a friend who just wants to say hello, or a mother’s comforting words fill the soul and then some. Singing a beloved song to a child, reading a story together from a tattered book, finding Dad’s favorite slippers, or sharing a box of chocolates make up what we call love. Home is the headquarters of our founts of love, the source of care and concern we pour out on others – for a lifetime.

Love is measured one drop at a time. A friend’s applause or honest critique of our performance says, “I love you; you matter to me.” Spilling out of our founts of love can be forgiveness, sincerity, long-suffering, generosity, and warmth for someone we may never meet again. Picture the outpouring when a recent natural disaster washed across a cluster of nations. Images of catastrophic devastation and death continue to fill our television screens; urgency to help fills our hearts. Nations step up with their many resources; strangers pool together funds and offer prayers.

The fount of love is life at its best—life in its goodness, purity, and simplicity. We love because we have been loved.² May we praise Him who “so loved the world” ³ with that “love divine, all loves excelling.”⁴

1.        “Sing Praise to Him,” Hymns, no. 70.

2.        See 1 John 4:19.

3.        John 3:16.

4.        Charles Wesley, “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling,” (1747).