| April 25, 2007Love, of the Unusual Kind What makes me so important? Why do I feel like I am better than another? Are we not all created by the same All Mighty God? Did he not make us different for a reason? Or perhaps He simply decided to throw random types of people together in the world to merely see what would happen, for some type of fruitless diversion. “…For thou (God) hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” Rev. 4:11. I do not believe that it gives my Lord “pleasure” to see me thinking so well of myself, and thereby thinking so little of others. Did God make only me special? Were not “all things” made for his “pleasure”? This may not seem to follow the same line of thinking to you, but, it is through these things that Christ is teaching me love, of an unusual kind. Where I am strong, another is weak; where another is strong, I am weak. God often puts the strong in my life for me to learn and grow from. The interesting fact is, he often uses the weak for the same purpose. Certainly God can use me in their life, but I must refrain from seeing myself as God’s gift to man. I must look for what the Lord would have me learn from a person or situation; in short: I must learn to learn! Every moment of my life Christ is giving me opportunities to be transformed into his image, I must remind myself that it is not my job to transform others into his image. I must become the student even when God is using me as the teacher. God intentionally puts people and situations in my life that are not easy to take. He did not intend life to be easy; full: yes, joyful: yes, and yes even fun, but not easy. The Lord is teaching me that it is not enough to just put up with people, I need to LOVE them. I have come to an interesting conclusion while watching and training children: I have told them not to aggravate each other, but this does not seem to be enough. One child may be doing something that should not aggravate the other, yet it does, and the other becomes upset and irritated. No, the second child should not have been irritated, but if the first child were truly wanting to show love, he would try to NOT aggravate, whether what he was doing should annoy the second child or not. The same is true in my adult life, whether something is truly offensive, or someone is offended without reason, I should try to avoid offending. This is not to say that truth should not be spoken, and right should not be heard. But simply that I should go out of my way to prevent an offense, even if it means a more challenging time for me. Needless to say this is not an easy concept to apply. As is said in Princess Diaries 2: “The concept is grasped. The execution is a little illusive.” (best line in the movie). My Lord has shown me time and time again that my relationships with others matter to him, and, in fact, are especially important to him. Jesus says in Luke 6 that even sinners love those that love them; if this is so, how do I set myself apart as a believer? Christ also says “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” The concept of loving those who hate me does not present as much of a problem to me as loving the unlovely. Those who hate (not that I know anyone who hates me in the true sense of the word) are not that difficult to love because…….Well it is like being tempted in an extremely blatant way, the temptations that are obvious are easy to resist and reject. It is the subtle temptations that always seem to get the better of me. When someone is simply hard to get along with and difficult to love (they may even like me) this is where my struggles begin. God, through his Word, speaks constantly of unconditional love, loving as Christ loves. Perhaps he speaks of it so often because he knows how I struggle with it. I seem to be a fairly matter-of-fact type person: you know, just choose to do it and be done. Thus when the Lord is teaching me something, he shows me practical ways to apply the concept in every day life, and my heart is swiftly changed in the matter. On the other hand there are not always practical applications to matters of the heart. The Lord is showing me, however, that I can apply this in a semi-practical way: if I can view ALL others as better than myself (Phil.2:3), and view myself as the servant of all others, my heart will follow soon after to have love for the unlovely, as I will be serving them, and we tend to love those whom we serve with a Christ-like heart. As this change transpires in my heart I will find greater joy in loving others than in loving myself. Love, of the unusual kind……….It seems to me, should not be all that unusual. We have always said in my house that I am not the type to “talk about my feelings till the breath is sucked out ‘my body.” But sometimes I believe it is important, for my own good, to identify what is in my heart, whether or not anyone else (excepting God) knows about it. |
B.T.W. This is Gimli (black) and pippin (gray) (there is another gray who we call Merry, they are all boys.).
