The last year or two I have been reading the Bible and asking God to show me who He is and to teach me and reveal to me His heart. I have been in church for 33 years. I have heard the messages over and over. I am very thankful to have been able to learn from many who have a heart for God. With that being said I think there is an issue that arises from always hearing what others have to say about God in a church setting. It seems that almost all systems resist change and new information. As time moves forward we tend to generalize and simplify and reduce truth to rules of thumb. This process of reducing information to simple thoughts and ideas we loose the connection that individuals were required to have with the source. God loves His church. He loves every individual in it. As individuals we need to seek God for what He is telling us. God can use a pastor to speak into your life, but if that is primarily place where God speaks to you then there is a great need for drawing closer. God wants us to draw closer. God is fearful!
Approaching Love is a fearful thing. It must be done with humility. The Light of God's love is piercing. His bright light will shine and heal all of those things that are hurting. There can be no insincerity in the presence of God. God's love is all consuming. It is a fearful thing, especially if we are holding onto sin. Sin provides a sense of comfort, especially if it is a familiar sin. We have created little systems of behaviors that give us a sense of structure and comfort in the ways we choose to medicate the anxiety of life and specific circumstances. I have my systems. They are pretty strong systems. I hate these systems. Letting the love of God shine into our systems is fearful. What if He sees me to be a little ugly? What if others see that I am not congruent? What if it hurts? What if I have to confess to being an adulterer? What if I have to confess to being a thief? The light is shining, we just have to walk into it. That is the hard part. To be lovers of God we must willingly walk into the things we fear the most.
Love is a great mountain. It is a mountain that invites men and women with courage to live, breathe and die within its borders. Love is not something that is natural to man. There are things in man that allude to Love and there is a desire in man to harken to it. There is a love that man has naturally. It has its place, but it is a pretty shallow resource. The love of man is a resource that is valuable to man but is easily depleted. When I meet someone that I like, whether it be a woman or man, that inspires me to be excited to get to know them more I give them some of my love. I may share with them words of appreciation, hope, affection. We will spend time together and I will give more from this resource. I will give it freely because it makes me feel good. It makes me feel connected. I could tell a woman, "I love you, I want to spend the rest of my life getting to know you more!" I can mean that with all that is in me. The problem is that there is a limit to what is in me. This does not mean that those words are insincere, just maybe a bit misinformed. When we begin relationships we bring a set of hopes and expectations. We bring our own history and personal experience and the corresponding fears and dysfunctions. In the course of giving of one's love freely it is inevitable that we will hurt the other and they will hurt us. We may "see" something about them that we didn't once see and will be thrown off by it. This happens in every relationship. This is the point where we are most unprepared as humans. We are not prepared to handle the disappointment of our own expectations and how those expectations disappoint us when we project the hope of them onto another. The result of these experiences is diverse and it seems that most of us do not recover from the disenfranchisement but rather judge, justify, and move on.
I posit that God leads us into relationships to purify our hearts and to lead us to humility and love. Love in my estimation is something that is a function of two things: Humility and Forgiveness. Without these two things Love is not possible. God wants to lead us to Love. He gives us the opportunity to experience real life with people. In these experiences He has the aim of giving us a great honor. We approach love with hope. Love that is not tested is not love that is strong. Love by nature is something that is persistent. Humans have created this concept of "I don't love you anymore." This concept is theoretical and a logical fallacy. What may be more accurate is, "I never loved you" which is an indication that, "I do not have love." I don't say any of this to condemn, it is just a matter of truth. God lets us come to these places where we utterly fail in our attempts to love so that He can show us a better way.
Almost all of my romantic relationships have lasted approximately 3 months. Most of my friendships have lasted about two years. Since I have lived in Springfield I have managed to have some friendships last seven or eight years. To be honest, many of those friendships could have lasted about two years. I am a man with a very complex system of expectations and judgements (standards...hehe). I have been able to write people off fairly easily. I can move on pretty quickly from friendships. In these long term relationships of eight years I have come to know a little bit about love. Our love must be tested. We all approach relationships with a perspective of how they affect us. We are so much less aware of how we affect others. In fact, we cannot really know how we affect others. Most of what we we "are" is something that is internal, it is what we think and feel. We do not know what others think and feel unless they share that with us. In my experience of thinking and feeling things in connection to specific relationships I have been disappointed over and over. I didn't realize that when I chose to entertain the presence of ______ that they were "that way." I didn't realize that they were going to be primarily concerned with themselves. You know, its ok because I can always make new friends. There are always other cute girls out there to chose from.
I want to make it clear that I think this type of experience is universal and it is very damaging to heart. It was in this line of thinking and the commitment of these friends to be in my life that I learned that Love was extending its hand to me. It finally dawned on me that I was being loved. I was being forgiven. All the time I was being affected others I didn't realize the affect I was having. It was this new revelation of how I was affecting others negatively that I was being given grace by God to be invited to embrace the first quality of Love, Humility. Until I realized that I was broken and in need of grace from others I could not relate to them sincerely. I had been standing removed as a judge with a complex set of "high standards". I wasn't aware that I was unable to stand justified even under my own standards. I assumed that I was sort of a benchmark for acceptable living. When I realized that I was not and that I was hurting others I was able to see that it was possible for me to forgive them for hurting me. I will say that most of this "hurting" was really of no consequence. Most of the little offenses that we make are tiny silly things, but they are the things that direct the course of our judgements on others. It is these small things that we use to make our biggest decisions.
God does not want us to be living and making our big decisions in life on these little offenses. We don't need to making our decisions based on big offenses. God wants us to be cloaked in Humility. This humility will lead us to understanding that leads to forgiveness. Forgiveness in light of an empathetic experience (humility) is the heart of Love. God wants humans to see each other in His light. He wants us to have the joy of love with others and the security that it brings. We live in a broken world. We are in no way guaranteed that when we love others and extend them grace that we will receive it in return. Reciprocation of love is not the reason for love. If one were going to make a case about love a stronger case could be made that Love is intended for situations of not-love. I have been reading Corinthians and Paul is speaking about Christians taking each other to court for their offenses. He says, "wouldn't you rather just suffer being defrauded?" This has been in my mind for weeks. We are not to defraud each other. It may happen at times that a brother or sister in Christ will deceive us and take parts of ourselves that they were not willing to pay for and it will hurt. Instead of seeking justification from the Law he asks us if would we not rather suffer being wronged. If we hold another's offense up and demand payment, then God will judge us with the same measure. This is a great challenge. It seems unbearable. Would I not rather be wronged? Will I turn the other cheek? Will I walk an extra mile with the brother or sister that will ultimately take my coat and leave me in the cold? This is what Jesus is calling us to. I must say that the notion is offensive in itself. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. A man or woman of humility and understanding will walk with a brother knowing that there is evil in his heart. Jesus let Judas walk with him knowing that he would betray Him. Jesus knows that the reward is in itself. The reward of love is being able to live with love. The reward for betraying a brother or sister is the betrayal. Jesus knew that the pain of betrayal and the dark heart of sin was a burden enough. Jesus didn't throw a fit that he was wronged. He silently gave himself up. We are to do the same. I can't say that I I will be good at that any time soon, but that is where I want to be. Life is hard. Life is complicated. The best we can do is to take it with a pure heart of love and not hold each other to the judgements that we are so inclined to making.
I am sorry for hurting you. I am sorry for holding you to a standard
that
i cannot fulfill myself.
May the peace of God reign in your heart richly
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