Discovering the root of the problem
There were several diseases that were more perplexing to me than others. Keep in mind, I was trained to look at certain physical problems that plagued humanity as being diseases, but I was able to look past the common definition of such things and realize that these afflictions were actually symptoms of a more generalized underlying disease. This underlying disease was the absence of the three areas that I had discovered were lacking in the lives of people: love, forgiveness, and meaning / purpose in life.
It was at this time that I began to solidify my knowledge of the fact that the Gospel was the answer to all three key areas as mentioned above.
My initial path on this quest for answers lead me to asking God about love and what love was truly about. The definition for love as seen in the Bible is found in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 and is the exact definition that people gave me when I asked them about what was missing in their lives. I literally had desk drawers full of people’s definitions of what was missing in their lives. These definitions equated to what the Bible describes as love. What I was hearing always lined up with what is revealed within four verses in 1 Corinthians chapter thirteen. What was being revealed to me by multiple responses from multiple people was that they were all missing relationships that were based upon patience, kindness, a lack of envy, a lack of jealousy and a lack of resentment. In addition, trust and loyalty were noted as being important as well. These are the characteristics of love that are listed in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.
After seeing this, I wondered if this was simply an aberration. Was it as simple as the fact that I had a group of people who were giving me similar answers? What was the importance of love? What sort of evidence was available to show that life in fact is dependant in any way, shape or form on love? Keep in mind, the subject of love as a foundational quality to success in life was never brought up in any of my courses throughout medical school. Was love as important as people were proclaiming it to be or was love simply a subjective emotion that is sensationalized? Where was the credibility to substantiate what I was hearing? I began to seek out evidence as to the importance of love. This process began with reviewing some basic experimental psychology where there had been a removal of relationship in the lives of the subjects being tested. In fact, experimentation was done on single cells in areas that define life such as respiration, digestion, excretion, reproduction, locomotion and communication among many other areas that define life. These experiments concluded that a cell operates more effectively if it is in relation to another cell.