I believe in love. I am guilty, just like many Christians, of adopting the mindset that you can love someone without liking them. This way of thinking is so very dangerous. It is very catchy and very tempting.
In John 15:17 Jesus said, “This is my command; love each other”. He shattered the idea that life can be about what we want it to be about. Where did we ever get the idea that saying, “I love you, but I don’t like you,” is acceptable? Trying to love while we are focused on the unlovely is not going to be a genuine kind of love. I no longer have the excuse to say that I will only love or approve of someone when I feel that they are worthy to receive it. I can spend a lifetime praying for a difficult person. I can pray that God will change them and deliver them from their sin. But have I ever considered that I can spend some time praying to my Lord, asking him to change me?
I believe in love. I am convinced that some people are naturally lovely people. They are so full of love that they pass it on to others as normally as the air that they breathe in and out. This is not so of me! Loving is hard! I have grown up in a family where love is so readily given. And the logical thing to assume would be that I am around it so much that I am not only a consumer, but also a producer of it. Instead, however, I am ashamed to say that it is hard for me to love. I want to love those who are like me or like something I want to become. I feel like loving someone who I have deemed unworthy would be a waste of my time. How this breaks God’s heart! And thank God that it broke the heart of one of my dearest friends.
I have a friend who believes in love. She sees the unlovely and finds something more than I could ever see. She pays very close attention to the direction of her life. She analyzes and sometimes worries over it. But she isn’t worried about which college she will attend or what career path she will choose. The ultimate thing that weighs on her mind is that her life is a life of loving God and loving others. But those are my words, not hers. Because she is anything but cliché. Sometimes she focuses a little too closely on being unlike what she is expected to be. But let’s be honest, wouldn’t you rather be found at fault for imperfectly trying to love, or for never taking the time to care to love at all?
