I woke up with the sunshine this morning [hello, sun. i've missed you! thanks for visiting michigan] and did a little reading. Sometimes reading is fun and easy, sometimes it's a cleverly disguised nudge, sometimes it's that blatantly obvious slap in the face to help you really understand all the other recent slaps. [oh, wait, so all these pieces do fit together? no way!]
For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another [1 john 3:11]
I'm not really sure why I thought this, since twenty-two years of experience has so far proved otherwise, but I've always expected that one day, loving people would be easy for me. I'm not sure whether I figured they would all just become really awesome or I would become really awesome, but I expected that eventually everything would change and I would be so awesome at loving/serving/giving. And man, would I be a cool Christian then! This week has been all about challenging my ridiculous conceptions and replacing them with unamenable truth:
"That's what's so difficult about Jesus' call to love others. On one level, it's easy to love God, because God doesn't smell. God doesn't have bad breath. God doesn't reward kindness with evil. God doesn't make berating comments. Loving God is easy, in this sense. But Jesus really let us have it when he attached our love for God with our love for other people." [gary thomas]
Loving people is always the harder thing to do. It's the right thing, but it never really gets easier. When loving people means roadtripping with the windows down and singing along to your favorite songs, man, I'm great at that. But when loving people looks like forgiveness [a conscious continual choice, not actually a one time thing like i previously thought], grace, and pursuing someone as equally unlovable as myself, I want to quit. Yes, I can practice/cultivate behaviors and routines and habits of the actions of love, but this heart cannot be trained to love on autopilot.
I heard someone talking about how Paul treats the Corinthian church. These kids were pretty messed up, yet he opens his first letter to them with the line: "I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus..." I don't think it was easy for Paul to love them. Obviously, he's writing them a letter over some pretty frustrating behavior. In fact, this sentence could even have been as much of a reminder to himself as to them [maybe that's improper speculation, but i know how often i need remind myself of grace before i have any interaction with people].
Love isn't something that works on autopilot. I will never naturally or unconsciously love people. Love is a constant moving forward, not an apathetic staying put and waiting for the Love Fish to jump up out of nowhere and hit your head [gosh, i'm kind of violent this morning. all this slapping of faces]. The people who needed John's letter had heard about love from the beginning, but still needed to hear about it again. Me too.
Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth [1 john 3:18].
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2 comments:
As always, Emily... As always, thank you.
The funny thing is (no offense intended) I didn't mean to read your blog just now. My mouse has been misbehaving this morning, so though I was actually aiming for a different bookmark, it decided it liked yours. And suddenly, here I was. Being slapped in the face.
:)
I will not tell you how long or short the way will be; only that it lies across a river. But do not fear that, for I am the great Bridge Builder.
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