I have to admit, I have not been looking forward to Love Week. Hope is lovely. Peace is lovely. Joy is lovely. Love, however, is not lovely. It's stinky and sweaty and puts you in a position where you have to decide between taking a shower or a nap.
I couldn't help but enter this week with a bit of cringe, as I acknowledged that this one was going to hurt. Loving is NOT my forte -- moments of serenity and ignoring reality for the sake of something better I can DO, but this loving thing is really hard.
But here we are. It's Love week and there's no going back.
This morning I was reading in Matthew 1, the words from Isaiah: " '...they shall call his name Emmanuel' (which means, God with us)."
God with us. The truth is, to love is to be with. To be present to. Of course, it isn't limited by physical "withness"...we all have friends at all kinds of distances that we are "with" to varying degrees. But when we love, we make someone else's world our world. Just like God did with us. We are present to their joys, their concerns, we understand -- or seek to understand -- what their world is like.
That hits me most in regards to my kids. It's so easy to not be "with" them. To be focused on my world instead of theirs, to see things from my perspective instead seeking to see things how they do. It's a lot of "do this" and "don't do this", rather than being with -- walking and guiding and listening.
But really loving others first requires that we enter their world, that we stop worrying about our world for a moment. We've all know what it's like when someone loves without first entering another person's world. That's where fruitcake came from. Somebody's world had a little too much flour, sugar and funky fruit and imposed it on another world, a world that had to thinly reply, "gosh, how thoughtful".
Entering another's world is awkward and time consuming and humbling. Which is why more of us don't make hobbies of it. But if we want to love like Jesus loved -- and if we want to more fully appreciate the sacrifice He made in coming to be "God with us" -- we have to be with; be present.
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
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Last spring, I helped in an after school program at a church for a couple
afternoons; a fun, crazy experience, and it stretched more than my legs,
that's ...
4 thoughts anyone?:
Well, crud.
Until I read this, I thought I was getting better at Love. Here's the thing, for me at least: the only way I can really love (patiently, kindly, humbly, blah, blah, blah)is if I stop loving myself so much and start surrendering my heart to the Holy Spirit.
But I'm a little scared to do that. Even though I know perfect love casts out fear, I have this secret fear that God will use me to love people I don't want to love, like that neighbor down the road that makes me crazy.
And how silly is that? Because if it's not me, if it's God through me, it's going to work and it will work magnificently if I allow Him to!
I agree that love comes with vulnerability, but it doesn't mean weakness. Being vulnerable to God means perfect peace and strength, hope and joy.
NOW, thanks to your Advent-ageous poke to my heart, I have some spiritual trash to take out and some housecleaning of the heart.
:)
You're so right -- there's that whole aspect of love where we make it harder than it is sometimes. As in, God's happy to give us plenty of love to share...but somehow...as you say, it's scary! But it shouldn't be. But it is. And then I also deal with the pouty "but God, I don't WANT to" factor. Love involves a breaking of the will and for us strong-willed folks there can be lots of splinters.
...trying to gratefully receive God's grace in these things...
You should listen to this week's sermon from new community:
http://www.new-community.com/teachings.html
It's a different advent "theme" (joy instead of love) but the same concept.
Hearing the sermon and reading your blog was like an advent conspiracy...
woah. it IS an conspiracy. but then, with Jesus, it's always a conspiracy...
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