Loving others is not a novel idea. It is something that is engrained in people’s hearts from the time they are little. As a Christian, I know the two most important commandments are to: love God and love others. For most of my life, I took that charge pretty lightly. To me, it meant to be nice to everyone. That was the way you “loved” others. And to love God, you just had to be saved. That was it.
However, what if that isn’t what loving others is all about? What if being nice is not enough? Relatively recently, within the last year or so of my life, I have heard of the idea of loving people well. That was interesting to me. That phrase, “loving well,” implied that there are better ways to love others than just being kind, and that not everyone receives love in the same way. When I started thinking about it, it made some sense. Everyone is different, so why should I assume that everyone gives and receives love the same way? Here in lies one of the biggest lessons I am learning on the World Race.
Jesus is teaching me a lot about love, and to Him, love is a HUGE deal. 1 Corinthians 13: 1-3 says, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” These verses completely rattled my heart. I want to become a woman of great faith, but here Jesus is saying, it doesn’t matter how much faith you have. Without love, you are nothing. Dang. So how do I make my life a proof of His love? I ask daily: Lord, how do I love You and others well? Teach me what it means to love. This is what I have learned so far:
- While I am on the race, I should be giving it my all in every single country and at every single ministry. I may be tired or hurt or annoyed, but that should not stop me from persevering. I heard from someone else that it being hard to leave a country on the race is a beautiful thing. It means that you left a piece of your heart there, that you gave it your all. I want to love the people I meet so radically that I can’t bear to leave them. Giving them a piece of my heart is a wonderful thing, because my heart belongs to Jesus. So by giving them some of my heart, in sense, I shared Jesus with them.
- Love sometimes means seeing others how Jesus sees them. It means having a good attitude despite hardships or difficulties or annoyances. I think I can love others well by simply having a good attitude even when they are hurting me or when my circumstances aren’t what I would choose.
- Having a servant’s heart is an amazing way to love others well. It means that you are putting yourself last. It means that the needs and wants of others are more important than my own. This is very hard. It means that sometimes life isn’t fair. Sometimes I have to serve my team or others by doing their dishes for them, when they have never offered to do it. But loving well really means serving wholeheartedly and not expecting anything in return. By walking in that truth, there is abundant joy and blessings. Acts 20:35 says, “In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” I have seen this to be true. Not thinking of myself every moment is very freeing.
- I have learned that to love others, we must first receive the Father’s love and learn to love ourselves. This is a hard one for me. For many years, my biggest critic has been myself. When I mess up (which is everyday), I beat myself up. I hate rather than love myself. This is the enemy attacking me. The truth is that Jesus infinitely and unconditionally loves me. Psalm 139: 14 says, “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.” Jesus calls me worthy and beautiful. He is truth, so I must accept that truth about myself. If Jesus, the Savior of the universe, is willing to die on a cross to forgive and love me, I should forgive and love myself. One of my friends on my squad gave me wonderful advice on how to do this. She told me to start writing down gifts and great qualities the Lord has blessed me with. So to love well, you must love yourself well. You must spend time soaking up the Lord’s love for you, so that you can be that bottomless well that filters His love to others. This is a very important way to love well.
- If you know me at all, you know that I love to talk. This can sometimes be a blessing and a curse. Sometimes I let my words be empty and self-indulgent. The Word says in James 1:19 that, “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.” I should be quick to listen. This is a great way to love others and Jesus. It makes the other person’s words, ideas, feelings more important than my own. It makes them feel important and truly loved. I think most people truly desire to be heard and understood, and this is a great way to fulfill that desire. Sometimes I may not agree with what they say or I may be offended by their words, but that doesn’t always require a response. I should be slow to anger and quick to grace. Even more so, while they speak, I have learned that it is important to actually listen and not just be thinking of what I am going to say in response. Love well with your ears.
By doing these types of things, I can love others well. Sometimes people are hard to love. Sometimes they do and say things that hurt you, but I hurt Jesus every day through my sin, yet He deeply and intimately loves me. I want to be that type of person. I want to be a lover of all people, and by doing so, a great lover of Jesus. Now, I am not saying that I have this whole loving people thing all figured out. In contrary, I am still so confused. I don’t always know what it looks like to love well, and sometimes, it is sooooo difficult to choose to love others. I keep messing up, but Jesus keeps loving me, so I will keep trying.
If you have any words of wisdom on how to love better, please comment or message me. I would love that. The World Race is obviously a journey, but so is life. The goal of this journey, of life, is to love and to love well, so I will keep persevering to reach that goal. I pray that you know that I love you. I hope that I can love you well whether it be through a listening ear or a praying heart. Email me, seriously. Now, I will leave you with the verses below and a picture of an incredible women who gives her life to love babies at a orphanage in Manila every single day. (I had to cut out the pictures of the babies for safety reasons). God be with you, my friends. 
“The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” 1 Timothy 1:5
“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-13
