Love is a word that is small but carries a lot of weight. I also think it is a word that is thrown around loosely, therefore losing some of that weight and desensitizing us to the truth of its meaning. I can say that I love a lot of things. For example, I love dogs, mountains, water, my nephews, hot tea, eurocream pancakes, learning, the fall, and driving with the windows down. The way that I love each of these things is different. Although I love mountains, and I do for their welcoming trails and majesty, I don’t love them like I love my nephews. That is a great love, a love I never thought I had in me.
But I think there is more. In fact, I know there is. Because when I look at how love is defined in the Bible, I still come up shallow. The only reason we love at all, is because He first loved us. He paved the way for what it looks like and it doesn’t come close to the love I have for others, certainly not for things or passions. Although those things are important to me, it is not the love He had for me or the love that is described in the Bible.
Patient
Kind
Not jealous
Does not brag
Not arrogant
Does not act becomingly
Does not seek its own
Is not provoked
Does not take into account a wrong suffered
Does not rejoice in unrighteousness
Rejoices with the truth
Bears all things
Believes all things
Hopes all things
Endures all things
Love never fails
That is quite a list. A very intimidating one I might add. If I were honest, on any given day, my love might encompass one or two of those descriptions. Love, generally, is given to things or people that validate who you are or want to become. What if we really loved like this? Loved our spouses. Loved gypsy kids that haven’t bathed – maybe ever. Loved the person that makes you the most frustrated. Loved the Muslim that doesn’t believe in the God that you do. Loved someone so different from you that approval or validation rarely come. I wonder what it would look like in my life. I bet it would be a glorious picture of the love that He showed me. I was the unclean gypsy kid, wandering and filthy in my rags of sin. But He loved. And certainly not for my approval or validation, as if He needed any. Good thing He doesn’t, because I certainly didn’t give him any. And even now, as I am trying to understand the magnitude of His love, I find myself coming up short in how I love Him back. Am I patient with Him? Does it rejoice in the truth? Does it believe all things or hope all things or endure all things? Does my love for Him ever fail? And if He is perfect love and faithful and I know He his heart is for me, yet I fail, how do I expect myself to love others in a way that is worthy of these descriptions?
The end of September marked a debrief for our squad in conjunction with 3 other squads. We met with our squad leaders, our coaches, and the director of the World Race, Michael Hindes. Michael has a lot to say but during that debrief, he said something about love that left me thinking and pondering. He talked about pursuing someone and choosing someone 1000X even when the response isn’t what you think it should be. Sometimes it could take months of deposits in order to get a return. I don’t care who you are, that kind of love is hard. Commitment to someone or something even when there is no return. Trusting in love without hearing that you are on the right track, or worse not seeing fruit of that love. Oh my, that is hard. I would imagine that is what parenting is like. Loving someone so much – sacrificially, patiently, bearing all things – depositing in someone more than you thought possible. And at times rarely seeing a return. Children don’t always respond to their parents in a way that is appropriate or in a way that the parent’s hoped. But it is the parent’s job to press in and keep depositing, regardless of the response. At times parents make mistakes and make withdrawals but I would imagine then, the goal is to make more deposits than withdrawals. The end goal, then, looking like a positive balance in the life of your child, so as to send them out into society able to make returns.
As so, until I become a parent and the real test begins, I will try to love others in a way that is worthy of my calling. I will continue to pray to see people the way God does and respond in a way that brings the weight and worth back to the word LOVE.
