In my previous post, I related how I drew a lesson from the movie Frozen. This is part two of the series.
As the movie played on, another song came up that I learned something from. The song, called “Fixer Upper” features a family of trolls trying to get two humans to start a relationship with each other. The song itself is pretty cheesy, but the lyrics really resonated with me:
We’re not saying you can change him
Cause people don’t really change
We’re only saying that love’s a force
That’s powerful and strange
People make bad choices
When they’re mad or scared or stressed
But throw a little love their way
And you’ll bring out their best
True love brings out the best
Like I’ve said before, living in community is HARD. It’s hard to prefer others, to put their needs before your own, to encourage and build them up in Christ. It’s hard to love others and to fight for them when they don’t want to fight for themselves. But God created us to live in community. There are countless stories in the Bible and across human history that illustrate the need for real, raw, Biblical community. We weren’t made to live in a vacuum of isolation. The next lines of the song even preach this:
Everyone’s a bit of fixer upper
That’s what it’s all about
Father, sister, brother
We need each other
To raise us up and round us out
Romans 12 offers us a Biblical example. Here’s some verses from that passage that illustrate how community should look:
“For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.”
“Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.”
“Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.”
“Rejoice with those rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.”
“Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all”
Because of our sin natures, people are notoriously hard to live with. They let you down, hurt you, pursue selfish desires, choose unhappiness and complaining instead of joy, want all your attention and resources without anything in return, ignore you, frustrate you…the list goes on. It’s so much easier to run away from them and choose to not even fight that battle. So often we get a picture of “community” as a place where people put on masks and never get real with each other, for fear of gossip, hurt, and rejection.
So if community is so hard, why put myself through it? Because God called me to it, and He’s teaching me things about loving others and fighting for others in ways I haven’t even imagined. By myself, I would choose to run away into the woods and live by myself, away from anyone who could hurt me. But God has been revealing to me the need I have for community. I need people around me who will support me, encourage me, and call out change in my life. God has placed people in my life for this season that I literally cannot escape, and He is using these people to affect change in my heart. He’s also put people in my life that are hard to love. People that don’t want to fight for themselves and who don’t want to change. But He’s called me to love them, fight for them, and encourage them, trusting that God will bring about a heart change in them.
God calls all of us to love as He has loved us. If it’s hard for us to love each other, we’re even worse towards God; yet He chooses to love us, even to die for us so that we may be washed clean and whole in His love. His love is what changes hearts and lives. His love is what makes community work.
The song is right: the only way to fix up people is True Love.
“By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. This is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.” ~1 John 4:9-12
