Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Me in short

I'm a thirty year-old redeemed thankful one married to a wonderfully patient and lovely wife. The only possession that I prize higher than my wife is my relationship with God, and that has been wonderfully granted to me by Grace, not by my merit. I am struggling to learn how to love God with all my heart, strength, soul, and mind. Under that broad category, I am also struggling to learn how to love:

1. My wife
2. My (C)church
3. My family
4. My friends
5. My enemies

I name those very specifically and pointedly. I believe the toughest command to carry out in life is to really love people. It's often very easy to be nice to people, but to really love people? Difficult beyond my wisdom. Please ponder with me...have you loved much this week? ...or simply been nice?
Biblical love goes so much farther than niceness...and often culturally probably doesn't even look nice...but oh how enticing it is when you actually encounter it. I seriously lack in this area and I want it to grieve me much more than it does.

shalom

3 comments:

  1. I think we become defunct in loving properly because we GIVE love in a way we would like to RECIEVE love. We don't ask the recipient of our love what they truly need or want from us. That is risky. It may require more than we are really willing to give...something we didn't intend...something out of our "comfort zone".

    How would you respond if someone asked you, "How do you really need me to love you?" The answer would certainly vary, depending on who asked you. I think I will ask someone that question very soon. I, too, struggle with this issue. I am a very selfish person. Thank you for putting it "on the radar." God bless.

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  2. Scott, I truly appreciate your candor in this area. Is it not an area where we all consistently “fall short”? Loving others in a truly biblical manner seems to me to be a widely underdeveloped, unaddressed topic in general. When it is addressed – we are led to the Scripture and “taught” the Scripture, but it seems I often gain a very limited understanding of just how to apply Jesus’ commands and go about my life loving biblically. Or, more honestly, I am too lazy to even try or when I do “try” do not succeed in my lame attempts to be more loving. I rarely succeed in the “act” of truly and honestly loving others biblically. And, I seem to fail the most when I feel the most that I should be making a better effort towards it!
    Sooooo, hang with me a minute and consider this line of thought. You have full permission to respond honestly (and lovingly of course – sorry couldn’t resist that lil’ pun there) and tell me just how far off base you think me to be! I have prayerfully considered that maybe this is not about performing an action of sorts or even a feeling that I should be aspiring to at all? Maybe it is more of a state of mind or a state of the heart or a growing sensitivity to His Spirit to lead and prompt me in this area. Does God not soften my human, hard and sinful heart to that which pleases Him and therefore invokes His Spirit which causes me to “love” in a biblical way? We can’t fake loving others. We can, however, fake it in our actions and “be nice” to others. I think when I am “acting or being nice” this is precisely the time when I allow my unwillingness to surrender to Him and/or my lack of obedience to His leading to become my own roadblock to loving others – truly loving them with a heart like Jesus’. For it is Him and only Him and His Spirit that is so Holy and so True that at precious and few times has prompted my heart beyond my human capacity as He wished and ordained and turned my feeble attempts at mere loving into a foretaste of biblical loving.

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  3. Cindy, you said,
    "Maybe it is more of a state of mind or a state of the heart..."
    to which I say amen and absolutely. Christy and I have had this discussion many times...she knows that I am good at loving her 'as a husband should' and fulfilling the right actions and niceness, but she can also certainly sense when I am simply fulfilling my 'duty' to her. It brings her no joy when I am doing the former, even though I am doing 'right' things, but she is overjoyed when I am truly loving her. I need the Spirit to love her as I ought, and she's my wife! How much more then, my enemies. Thanks for urging me forward.

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