(The following post is the product of a collaboration between our team leader Ryan Steffensen and myself.)
“What’s the hardest thing God could ask you to do?”
The question came from a squadmate in the back of a short truck bed in Indonesia. We had been singing and telling stories and laughing as we anticipated a day full of rock climbing and adventure, and the question caught me off guard. I looked away, watching the tea fields and shops fly past and shrink into the distance as we moved further down the road. The incessant honking of mopeds was nearly drowned out by my racing thoughts and the roar of the diesel engine as we navigated through the hill country of Java. What’s the hardest thing God could ask me to do? I didn’t know how to answer her.
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The Lord has taught me much on love over the past year. At a children’s home in Mexico, He put 1 John 4 in front of me for the third time in two weeks. I must have brushed past it the first few times, because on that day, verses 7-21 penetrated my soul and spirit and cut me to my core.
“The one who does not love does not know God.”
Love for my brother does not come easily to me. In fact, when love starts to well up inside of me, my immediate reaction is to shut it off.
If I keep my walls up, no one can hurt me.
But I also can’t love my brother with the love of Christ if I never show vulnerability.
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13, “If I give all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” There is significance in the word; love holds power!
I think of the love my parents have demonstrated to me the way my Father in Heaven has. So often, I’ve proven myself unworthy of that love, yet they continue to show it.
What a hypocrite I’ve been.
“We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.” – 1 John 3:16
There was a trial in my life in which I believed my idea of love to be greater than His. Here are some things I know today:
My love is ill-tempered and cruel; His is patient and kind.
I use my love as a weapon; His drives out all fear.
My love requires much before it’s given; His love for His children is unconditional.
I love only when I’m confident of reciprocation; He loves His own, even in our rebellion.
My love flees the moment it’s threatened, but neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor heights, nor depths, nor any other created thing can separate us from His.
I love last and least. He loved first.
Praise God that He loves me in my weakness. Praise God that He will continue His good work in me until completion. Praise God that He has regarded my helpless estate and has dealt with me graciously.
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“What’s the hardest thing God could ask you to do?”
I have my answer now. It would be to love like He does. The hardest thing God could ask me to do is love like Hosea loved Gomer. Yet the crap that Gomer pulled is the same adulterous garbage that I put my God through daily.
Yes, surely the Lord has taught me much of love in 2015. He has reached in and shone light into the cold, dark places of my heart. But I want to go deeper still.
I want to love like He does.
My Savior did not fulfill the ultimate act of love and vulnerability on the cross so that I could spend my life protecting myself from pain.
For me, it has taken abandonment to recognize this. It has taken me halfway across the world to realize the deep, intimate love that God wants to show me. I began to actually realize the love I have for family and friends, the love I have for the my team and for the people we’re trying to reach. Through it, I’ve heard God speak:
“Son, you have no idea.”
The love he has for us so deeply surpasses any kind of love that we can imagine.
So let’s embrace it.
Let’s do as we’re commanded and love our neighbors as ourselves, especially when we feel like they’re unworthy. Let’s love our enemies. Let’s love recklessly. Let’s love when it’s hard.
Let’s see people with the eyes of the Savior.
Consider for a moment the freedom that could bring.
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“Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and in truth.” – 1 John 3:18
