Loving fully: Part 1

Some say that love is weak...That we must not focus only on the love of God lest it result in leniency towards and trivialization of sin.  I say that we grossly misunderstand what love is.  Love is not weak.  Love is not lenient.  Love does not trivialize.  Love is stronger than death.  Love is jealousy more demanding than the grave.  Many waters cannot quench it, death cannot defy it, sin cannot stand it.  To be loved by God is to be claimed completely by Him.  There is nothing weak about love.

So perhaps the reason why we resist love is not merely because we misunderstand it, but also because we are afraid of it.  

We are afraid to receive the love that will claim us completely.  

We are afraid to give a love that will require a surrendering of self entirely.  

We are afraid.  

But we are commanded.

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”  (1 Cor. 13:1-3)

What is keeping you from loving fully?

The greatness of Love

What is greatness?  

I have always longed to do great things for Christ, to reach this broken world for Him in a meaningful way.  But what is the definition of ‘great’?  Especially after my high school graduation, I began to feel a mounting pressure to find what that ‘great’ thing was that I could do for Christ.  I was faced with decisions regarding education, work, and ministry opportunities.  Yet, try as I might, I could not perceive a clearly marked plan to follow.  This frustrated me immensely and I wrestled with feeling like I couldn’t hear God’s voice.  I needed a plan and He wasn’t giving me a clear one!  In our American culture we like to think that our lives are so linear…each year a stair step on the ladder of success…each accomplishment an affirmation and milestone of our value and identity.

Maybe we are wrong. 

Look at the very life of Jesus:

He was a baby.  He was a carpenter.  He was the Son, and he was also a son. 

The majority of His life composes the minority of what we read and know. 

What about the Jesus who was working on the wood, eating with his family, playing with his brothers and walking with his Father?  What about all of the ‘small’ ways in which he served his disciples?  We remember the revelation of his magnificence when He told the disciples to cast their net into the sea and their nets overflowed, but how many of us remember the verses right after that where the Bible says that Jesus prepared a meal for his disciples and invited them to eat breakfast with him?  When did we decide that the first act is ‘greater’ than the second?

I have also considered the question of greatness as I have read the story of Mary, Martha’s sister, and how she poured the perfume at Jesus’ feet, and those at the dinner wondered why she hadn’t sold the expensive fragrance and given her money to the poor.  Yet Jesus responded that she had done a beautiful thing.  He proclaimed that her story would be remembered and recorded for years to come.

What if sometimes Jesus calls us to demonstrate our love by pouring our talents and gifts – our very lives – our expensive oil – out in ways and places that are ‘radically insignificant’ in the world’s eyes, but beautifully significant in His eyes?

This is a lesson that the Lord has started to teach me.  Gently, He has been redirecting my soul.  I am a slow learner, but I am hungry to learn.  He is teaching me the lesson that Greatness is defined by Love. 

I can’t ‘do’ love; I can’t ‘think’ love.  Love is not a thing; it is Him.  Love is not worrying about something ‘greater’ that must be done in the future. Love is not pushing relentlessly for ‘more, more, more,” in the present.  Love is not glancing back in disgust at the inadequacy in the past.  Love is communion with Jesus.  Breathing now, living now, caring now.  Love might be reading books to little brothers today, because ‘tomorrow’ is ignoring Love for too long.  Love might be making dinner with my mother today, because today will soon be gone and I’ll never be able to go back and practice Love in this way again.  Love might be filing taxes for my father today, because Love knows that typing lots of little numbers into an excel spreadsheet can echo the beating of God’s heart.

Love is marveling at the blessed significance of every opportunity. 

‘Great’ is an ugly, rapacious idol when Love is sacrificed on its altar.

I haven’t lived long and I still know so very little, but the longer I live and the little bit more that I learn, the more I believe that God’s heart for us on this journey is so much more than a line to walk or a prize to win.  Perhaps life is not so linear, but more like a tapestry.  And all God asks of us is a yielded heart.  A yielded heart… and His reflected Love on this heart transforms more of this broken world than we could ever imagine. 

So my challenge has been to walk out the truth that in order for my life to be ‘great’ my Love must be real.  Right now.  Right here.  I must embrace Love knowing that the majority of my life may be the minority of what the world will know or remember…But I am not living to be known or remembered by the world.  I am living to be full of His Love – He is the one who works in me His will according to His purpose. And, “real love is when you live the daily faithfulness of making whole decades of minutes tell the truth about the glorious gospel.” – Ann Voskamp

Love is the key to the question of greatness.