I’ve been reading the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan during the past few weeks. I have prayed for God to give me a heart that loves the unlovable, one that sees others through His eyes rather than my own. I’ve realized that this is probably a dangerous prayer to pray. When I ask to love the unlovable and see through the eyes of Jesus, it means that I ask to be released of grudges and the ability to harbor ill-feelings towards others. Hmm am I ready for that? That’s a question that I have pondered. What does true and pure love look like to you?
Truly loving someone means that their needs are more important than your own. Their desires are more significant than yours. Where you once were the main focus, others’ happiness is the goal. The blame for hurt and anger is replaced with self-evaluation of how your own character flaws added to the problem. There’s no room for a scapegoat when truly loving others is the goal; it’s almost impossible to ignore your own fault in a situation, because you are seeking to be like Jesus, rather than seeking to confirm your importance or build a reputation. It’s no longer about you. The idea of placing despair in someone’s life is unbearable, because you count them as more important than yourself. You wouldn’t even entertain the thought of hurting someone that you truly love.
I’m learning to view love in a completely new way. How many times a day do we throw around the word love? How many times do we say “I love you”? How many people do we tell that we love them and never really mean it? Maybe we say it because it’s expected, or maybe we just think it’s the right thing to do. Love is more than just an emotion; love is a choice. It’s a daily decision to wake up and say, “Today I choose love. I may not feel like it, but I choose to love because Jesus has shown me love, and it’s really not all about me anyways so bring it on world.”
What would the world look like if love was more than just a word that has become meaningless? If we stopped being so selfish and looked around to what was going around us once in awhile? It’s more like, I love you…but what you ask of me is a little too much and a little uncomfortable so how about not. Or, I love you…if you do this for me, or if you’re always nice, or if you’re always joyful. It’s seldom that people love others without having any ulterior motives or expectations.
Jesus chooses to love me when I’m unlovable; he chooses to pursue me when I try to run the other direction, and when others give up because it’s no longer convenient. Jesus chose to lay down His life for me and you so that we would catch even a glimpse of the enormity of His pure love. Isn’t this the greatest example of love? Sometimes it’s easy to love others and sometimes it’s hard. Choosing love means that you accept the ease and difficulty of loving others with the same attitude, a Christ-like attitude. It’s a daily decision to lay down your own life, your own pride, your own view of love, your own everything and trade it for that of Christ. No one said it would be easy; they just said it would be worth it.
The love for equals is a human thing-of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles. The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing-the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world. The love for the more fortunate is the rare thing-to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints. And then there is love for the enemy- love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured’s love for the torturer. This is God’s love. It conquers the world.
-Frederick Buechner (quoted by Francis Chan in Crazy Love)
