Love. Sounds simple enough right? We use the word all the time. We “love” our favorite food or our pet. We “love” the new car or house. We love new clothes, traveling, money, stuff, people who can do stuff for us. “I love you.” Really? No wonder we have a hard time loving each other and an even harder time believing that others love us, or that Jesus loves us (??) when we tend to use the word so carelessly. So wrongly.
Being honest, some of us had really messed up experiences with people who claimed to love us. I can remember hearing the words “I love you” after being ignored, or screamed at or devalued in one of a hundred different ways by my parents and thinking, “No, you don’t.” My mother drank too much when I was a kid. Way too much. One of her favorite things to do was to drink to the point of just being ridiculously intoxicated then grabbing me as I was on my way to the kitchen and breathing in my ear the words ” I LOOOOOVE YOUUUUU.” My immediate gut reaction? “No, you don’t.” In my mental suitcase I have thousands of these experiences with various people over the course of my life. Too many to go into here but what I will say is this.. one, the ways we learn to experience that word as children and into our adolescent and teen years totally shapes how we receive “love” as an adult. And, two- I can tell by being around people for five minutes whether or not their “love filter” is damaged or broken and hurting or maybe, just not even there. I can tell when someone learned to “unlove” because that’s what went into them somewhere along the way. I can tell because something about them tries to make me feel unloved.
We are created to love. We are breathed life into in order to be loved and to give love away. Why’s it seem so hard then? I think because the flesh love we can give and what we look for in other people is always lacking. Its not enough to sustain us. We have more need than that. And others need more than we can give them. We try to guilt others into making them love us the way we think we need to be loved and maybe they can’t do enough. We try to love other people the way we know how and it never seems to be enough. It’s HARD to love others. Yet, in the church we are called to love.. BE LOVE! If we can’t LOVE then we are clanging loud cymbals and gongs and we are never getting it right. We stink at love. We are great at being hurtful and jealous and snarky and selfish- but we stink at love.
But God.
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. I John 4:10.
This is real love. This is the love we have to seek God for, and the love that teaches us how to truly give and receive love. It is not limited, it is not selfish, it is not conditional. He LOVED us and sent Jesus sacrificially out of LOVE. This is the kind of love I want to have in my heart and the kind of love I want to give. I want to give it without expecting. No strings attached, filled with Truth and Grace and Mercy and Justice and always pointing to the source. Jesus.
Pray with me …
God, thank You for loving me this way. Help me to believe You and to trust in Your love for me. I want to learn more about Your love and I want it to flow from my heart to others. Its my greatest need and my deepest desire. Please reveal Your love to me, and let Your love overwhelm my heart and I ask that You love others THROUGH me. I can’t do it on my own. Thank You for hearing my prayer and for answering the cry of my heart. I do love You, Jesus- and its in Your precious name I pray. Amen.
Cheryl Stevens - Words on Wordpress 