The human being cannot live 7 minutes without air…
… 7 days without water
… 7 weeks without food
… 7 years without being loved
That’s how I recall what I heard or read several years ago, highlighting some limits of human endurance using a scale of based on 7s, to be use more as a philosophical point rather than scientific guide.
For those of us who ever tried holding our breath we know that it’s pretty tough to voluntarily go beyond a few minutes before your body’s autonomic systems break your will because you physical body is starving for oxygen.
One of the longest times I’ve had to not breath in were in the Navy, once as a volunteer for a true body fat measurement in the Navy water tank before the Navy officially implemented a neck vs girth check. The other was training to be a diver in pool week when coming up for air was grounds for disqualification (despite scrambling at the bottom of a pool to collect your tanks that the instructors ripped off you). Fortunately, I’ve never been forced to near suffocation or drowning, what about you?
Fewer of us, though plenty of people around the world go lengths without clean water and proper food to eat. People frequently die of starvation or lack of water and many more, if they do have food to eat could be barely surviving on little more than mixing a literal mud cake to give the person a semblance of having something to eat.
For most people in non-poverty stricken places, there’s food, plenty to sustain life, though many would rightly argue that processed food is still not what the body requires for a healthy life.
Then the wise saying goes beyond the material and physical nature of living when it introduces a love as a required sustenance. Love is a spiritual quality. It’s often not so clear where love originates from, it seems to be something special that happens when we just experience it. We mostly connect it to family, friends, and/or spouses. Some people may make a connection between love and companionship to a fulfillment of purpose in life.
The 7 year benchmark rings a bell with another marriage statistic I heard long ago, that observed if marriage can survive 7 years, the probability of it surviving goes way up. A lot of critical differences between marriage partners surface within 7 years (and yes, they can take a long time to surface) and if the relationship can swim rather than sink during that time, essential character balance, problem solving or coping mechanisms are working. This does not mean there still can’t be some serious problems to resolve as the marriage continues, but statistics are statistics.
While surviving without love is not hardwired to living like cutting off your oxygen supply, it has a tremendous influence on the quality of life and in many cases, the influence we can have on others or others on us. It certainly can affect parenting and children. These influences can be mild or huge in intensity, positive or negative, affecting a few or an entire nation or world community.
Because love goes into the spiritual realm where it’s not easily quantifiable, love or the lack of love transcends what we know as time or life as we know it.
Yet, when we hear or read something like this memorable bit of philosophy of 7s, something deep inside resonates within our souls.
If you’ve been following this blog, you probably know where I am headed with this as I depart from the secular realm…
The reason love resonates within our souls is because each of us has been created in the image of God. God is an eternal being, Among God’s many attributes IS Love. Our eternal souls have a void space that desires and yearns to be filled with love and love connects with the eternal senses, we “feel” love is everlasting. Something is triggered in our core when we experience love.
It is also a fact that we, through life, find all kinds of surrogates, alternatives to the love of God in order to fill that void. What we often discover is there’s something lacking in people or things we derive our understanding of “love” from, when we find ourselves apart from God. That lacking begins not in others but within ourselves.
That’s where the sinful nature comes into play. We cannot help it, we are sinful and when left to our own devices, being ignorant or not, we all have the capability of destroying relationships from our propensity to only see it our way or to expect from others that which they are not capable of giving, even if they are in committed and “loving” relationship.
This is the critical importance of God and the purposes He sets out for each of us, if we are able to come to grips with the truth. We find our own fulfillment when we follow God’s guidelines:
In Luke 10:27, Jesus is asked the question upon knowledge of the greatest commandment:
27 [An expert in the law] answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
29 But [the lawyer] wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” At which point Jesus teaches the parable of the Good Samaritan (read Luke 10:25-37) to help clarify the question of “who is my neighbor?” And the summary was:
36 So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?”
37 And he said, “He who showed mercy on him.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.” – Luke 10:36-37.
It’s one thing to know Godly knowledge, it’s another to act on Godly knowledge.
To offer you more insights how we are to treat others, how growing more selfless as one matures in Christ, the Lord offered this in the Sermon on the Mount:
21 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. – Matthew 5:21-22.
How can one begin to understand love? From a Christian perspective, you begin to understand how much someone else has loved you, especially when it involved forgiveness of your wrongs and your humility and sorrow that occurs when we begin to comprehend the gravity of the wrongs you perpetrated due to pride or self-righteousness.
When grace and mercy are so great, the blessings of that grace should pour over one’s ability to hold it only for oneself. You begin to share it with others. You cannot hold it back like you wouldn’t be able hold your breath because every system in your body will struggle to get the air needed to detoxify your body.
I often describe these processes as begin to because with God’s greatness and magnificence, there is no limit, but we are seriously limited in how much we can comprehend at a time Yet we can still sense the eternal nature of love.
What is Love without Assurance? Would you ever doubt the person who truly loves you would ever turn his or her back on you?
13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. – 1 John 5:13
Jesus referred to Himself as “bread of Life” , spiritual food:
32 Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven.33 For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34 Then they said to Him, “Lord, give us this bread always.”
35 And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. – John 6:32-35.
Jesus referred to Himself and ‘living water”, spiritual drink:
13 Jesus answered and said to [the Samaritan woman], “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” – John 4:13-14
Regarding spiritual “air”, life itself from the oldest book in the Bible:
The Spirit of God has made me,
And the breath of the Almighty gives me life. – Job 33:4
Without the breath of life, we would not live or be alive.
If you have ever “fallen in love” or have basked in the love of another, you know how it can far exceed physical food in reviving your soul. Not surprising, because we are made in the image of God and God being in three persons (The Father, Son and Holy Spirit) is a God who understands relationship since before the beginning of time.
And this kind of love is not eros love which is physical and sexual. Philia love is the kind experienced among close friends. The greatest life changing love comes in the form of Agape love, that which is exhibited with personal sacrifice.
This is why disciplined and daily study of scripture yields spiritual fruit. A disciple of Christ is always (or as often as possible) seeking the instruction from his master. Any good student would understand that essential concept. Seeking to know, to learn the precepts of God is to become more the likeness of His thinking and to become more apt to become obedient to His will.
Won’t you consider accepting God’s invitation of relationship based on grace? This gift of God leads to a blessed life, living water, the bread of life and the assurance of Love for eternity.
For a detailed explanation of who Jesus Christ is from the Bible’s perspective go to the video in this website , “Who is Jesus Christ?”
For a review of the Ten Commandments: https://www.challenyee.com/the-ten-commandments/
CKY
P.S. Typos and all, I do not use AI.
Sunset photo in Hawaii (Maui) is from my personal stock.
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