In the context of my last post about love languages becoming unloving, I have a story that took place during my third month on the Race about identity, love languages, and mercy.
At the beginning of March, I was feeling a bit under the weather, so I bought myself a lemon to drink in hot water to soothe my throat. A few days later on Pi Day (3/14), one of my teammates (whose love language happens to be acts of service) decided that she wanted to bake a pie for the team. Her recipe called for a lemon, so she decided to use the one I bought without asking me first. Later when I saw her in the kitchen, the first thing she told me was that she used my lemon and that she would replace it. I was annoyed that she used it without asking, but since she said she would replace it, I said that it was fine. Days became weeks and I never saw my lemon replaced. And by then, it was no longer fine.
While things seemed calm on the outside, there was a spiritual battle taking place in me. There were a lot of problems the Lord was trying to address in my heart. First, I had an unwilling heart to give the lemon to the team without being asked for that contribution prior to its usage. This was because I felt entitled to what I had purchased, and when my ownership to the little lemon in the fridge was not acknowledged, I felt like I was not being acknowledged. I was placing my identity in things I owned because I was no longer resting in God’s provision for me because of His love for me. Extending grace burned me out because I forgot to receive from the love that the Lord had for me so I could give, forgive, and forget. Giving things out of my love with limits, and not from the One who is love without limits, I forgot the truth that even if I were to pour my life out and receive nothing in return, He alone would be my inheritance. Second, I was blind to my teammate’s love language through acts of service. Because I was so caught up in receiving a lemon for a lemon, I didn’t notice and appreciate the fact that she took the lemon and transformed it into an apple pie with her heart of service. Third, I was angry and I held on to all of this, which kept me from loving people further. I failed to walk in forgiveness, and being bent on receiving in my love language crippled me from giving in my love language. I stopped giving gifts to people out of a fear of provision that was rooted in the fear of not being loved. The “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours” mindset developed, and I withdrew from living fully in community. I ended up hating sharing things that I paid for because I felt like if another person took my things without acknowledging my ownership to those things, that person was failing to acknowledge me. My identity was so caught up in the things I had. A series of lies crept into my heart. I believed I wouldn’t have enough for myself because people didn’t care that I wouldn’t have enough. And they didn’t care because they didn’t love me. And of course, I didn’t feel loved because I was depending on other people for love, and not on God. I forgot that He loved me. In the end, I became so scared to love people because that love was based on having things around me, people loving me back, and not on the love of God for me independent of all these things.
I finally realized what an ugly person I was really becoming in withholding grace, forgiveness, and love a week later when I ate that same teammate’s granola by mistake, thinking that it belonged to the team. Utter fear struck my heart, because of the truth of Scripture: “For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Matthew 7:2) I realized that if she were to apply the same measure of law to me that I had applied to her, I would be in deep trouble. I would have had to beg for forgiveness and run to the store to replace her granola immediately. But because she chose to show me mercy that I failed to show her – mercy that came from Jesus – I remembered how good it was to be set free from the law. I remembered the law of Christ, which is to love God and love people out of the love poured out on the cross. And because I was forgiven much, I could love much to the point where those that are hardest for me to love, I could be free to love the hardest.
Despite the tempest that had brewed up in me, I believe my teammate also had faith. She had faith that even if I were angry and in sin when I found out she took the lemon, the anger would eventually subside and the sin eventually brought into light because of the faithfulness of God in the sanctification of His children (specifically in this case, the sanctification of His crazy, beloved child, Katherine Chen). The truth is that at the end of a day on the Race, I’m a messed up person, and the only people that I can depend on to raise me into greatness are also messed up people. Where does that leave all of us? Well I can’t place my faith in anyone on my team, but I can and I must place my faith in Jesus’ finished work on the cross, and the Holy Spirit’s continuing work on the soul of each and every person on my team. Not only is He working in me, He is also working in them. If I rest in that truth, I can rest in the fact that even if we all make some pretty big mistakes in this community, we have nothing to fear. His blood covers it all for me and for you. His perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18). Jesus loved us too much to leave us sitting in our sins two thousand years ago, and He loves us too much today to leave us sitting in our sins from a week ago. If I look to Him and believe that others in my community are looking to Him because of who He is and what He has done, then love truly covers a multitude of sins (and there is definitely a multitude of sin in community to be covered in deep love). Thanks to Jesus, I can show grace in giving my teammate what she didn’t deserve, and my teammate can show mercy in withholding from me the punishment I did deserve.
“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8
