Friday, January 16, 2015

Learning to Love

I love my little baby the most right now. I know it's wrong to say that but I'm here now with the sweetest, chubbiest, happiest 3 month old in all of history and she has me convinced that in this moment only her and I and mushy love exist. MY HEART EXPLODES.

Moving on from subject-less preface.

I was looking for a book to read the other day and saw Heidi Baker's Learning to Love on my shelf. I have read most of it before, but this time thought to myself, "I'm already a lover." I don't mean that in a prideful way at all. I'm just a natural empathizer. I bleed compassion. I don't ask homeless people questions, and quite frankly I don't care where they spend the $5 I gave them. If I lost everything I would probably smoke too. My own kids push me to personal limits, but I idealize holding orphans in my arms and getting lice. My husband has already sworn to me that we will not have less than 10 kids...and I'm not birthing 10 children. Once again, compassionate bleeding heart here that lead my eyes to skim over title Learning to Love because I've got this love thing down [apparently].

You see where this is going, right? I received soul shattering news about a fellow believer only minutes later. Someone with the light of Jesus Christ is in darkness. By choice. Out of the light, into the dark. These kinds of things make no sense to me because I actually try to be a good Christian
- err, even though I shouldn't... because I am a new creation. Seriously though, I am on a holy pursuit and it feels so right to be right. Right? Rant: WHY WOULD SOMEONE CHOOSE SIN? In the shower later that day, I cried. I am going to have to look this person in the eye, I thought. I know what they did. CRINGE. Sin makes me extra squirmy. What am I going to do? I heard God speak so clearly, "I guess you are going to learn to love."

I actually pray for my enemies. It doesn't bother me to bless them. Jesus, bless my enemies!!  YES, I have enemies. I am actually at a point in my life that not-saved SINNERS don't offend me at all. My husband taught me that. He says, "You can't hold a non-Christian to a Christian standard." I have finally grasped that and live it. Right now I am faced RIGHT UP CLOSE AND CENTER with a Christian choosing to sin. As far as I know, the prodigal son was already a son. He was a wandering son. I have heard numerous teachings on the "Prodigal Son" but here is another take from a non-theologian: what if some of us are the older brother and some of us are the prodigal? Or maybe we are all a little of both, one day faithful while another battling lingering discontent. But Father never changes and I don't want the Father's love in me to change.

For Christ's sake, my husband wants to work in the church! I am definitely going to have to come to terms with imperfect people and unending love. Both of those things are just major squirming for me.

Because I have to, allow me to clarify that I am not saying God is glad or OK with sinful lifestyles. Sin separates us from God and it's heartbreaking. I believe also that God, in His great mercy, provided a way out of sin.  He gave up His son to get us out of this mess. I don't believe God squirms around as much as I do. When I go into His presence panicked, I usually come away feeling petty. Self-inflicted petty, of course.

It's so easy to love broken people who look broken who were seemingly destined to brokenness by culture or tragedy. But normal people, from normal families, with normal clothes, and normal faces, and normal jobs are broken too. And some of those normal broken people actually believe in an incredible, life-changing, grace-charged GOD who could change everything in a second. One of the most precious lovers of God I have ever known once told me "Deliverance is easy. If someone can just grasp in a moment the all-consuming love of God, the devil wouldn't be able to stay." The problem is, most of us haven't grasped even a small measure of how loved we are. I want that for people so much. I want that for myself.

So, I guess I'm going to learn to love.

**As I am writing, I am listening to We Will Not Be Shaken, the new Bethel album. Amanda Cook belts out the most beautiful prophetic song, "You see Everything. I am seen and I am known by the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. There's no place I can go that Your love won't find me. No place I can hide that You can't see. No place I could fall that Your love wouldn't catch me. You see it all, You see it all through the eyes of love. You're in everything, all around me. You still pursue me. When I'm misunderstood Your love understands. You see it all through the eyes of love."

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