Are you In Love?

Have you ever been in love?  What about that excitement and butterflies when you’re in a new relationship?  The intensity toward another person when you’re eyes lock…or you kiss passionately.  You can’t stop thinking about your new “love”.  It’s fun, exciting, breath taking, adrenaline pumping…like a dream come true.  You know what I’m talking about?

Well, what if you and I were sitting at a table, and you were telling me all about this new love.  What if I turned around and challenged you, questioning whether or not those feelings were really the feelings of love?

Have you ever been in a relationship for a longer period of time when those initial feelings wear off?  Have you now fallen out of love?  Do you wonder if its time to move on?

I sometimes wonder if we have somehow misplaced feelings and love.  I think they can co-exist, but I don’t believe that they are one in the same.

One of the trends I see over and over is that people enter into relationships with people who make them feel amazing.  This isn’t a bad thing, but I do think we should give caution not to misplace feelings for actual love.  Too often we will love because of how another person makes us feel about ourselves.  In essence, we fall “in love” them because of how they love us.  The emotional high is too great to ignore and surely love is in the air.  Inevitably the honeymoon phase wears off and questions start to sink in.  The excitement levels out to normal every-day interactions and we find ourselves questioning whether the love is still there.   The statement either that we make or we hear friends make, “He/she just doesn’t love me anymore” is probably more pointing to the reality that “he/she doesn’t make me feel the same way anymore” than it is to the reality of love’s place within that relationship.

I don’t want to knock the feelings or excitement that people have in a relationship, but I have grown to realize that there is more to love than just a feeling.  I think love is actually more of a choice and an action than it is a feeling.

In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul describes love (you may recognize it from the Bible or from most of the weddings you attend):

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
(verses 4-7)

No where in that section does it imply the butterflies and rainbows that would describe the feeling that another person stirs up within us.  If anything it shows actions that we would live out toward another person.  It is not always easy, but it is always good when viewed and delivered appropriately.

Think about Christ, the ultimate sign of love for another.  He died for no good reason other than to become the means of reconciliation between God and His Creation.  It was not easy (the gospels reveal Christ’s own battle over his own death), there were no puppies and rainbows.  God certainly didn’t send Christ because we made him all giddy inside.  He sent his Son to die (an action) to do what we were unable to do ourselves.

Do you think you’re in love?  I think its important to understand why and compare those reasons to the love that we know of as defined by God, because ultimately that is where any ability for us to love will come from.  Sure, enjoy the excitement in a relationship, but don’t define the love within your relationship around those feelings.  Love doesn’t have to feel good to exist.  It’s both beautiful and difficult.  It demands that we put aside the question, “what about me?” and requires that we instead start looking at the person next to us and question, “what about them?  what do they need and what can I give”.  Its not something that can change overnight, but I think it’s a worthwhile change that we can/should try to make…especially if we ever want to truly love another for the long haul.

Love and Sacrifice

 I am taking a class on the Old Testament via an online seminary class.  Tonight we had our first online chat/interactive class. 

 Tonight, our first online chat was on the topic of “Torah and Life: The Relationship between Love and Grace”.  The discussion, overall, was excellent.  People asked really good questions and had great insights.  At the very end of our session the professor shared two examples on joyful obedience to a law: one being on a friend of his and the other was with his wife and one way that he serves her.  As I read the second example I began to realize that I do live under Grace, but that obedience to God’s law shows a form of love…one that is somewhat sacrificial, dying to what I might want or need or desire in that moment, but instead obeying/walking/living out what I know to be right in the eyes of my Lord.  In my professor’s second example, I saw sacrificial love so clearly demonstrated.  It’s wasn’t a major sacrifice that he described, just a simple, ongoing way that he serves his wife by cleaning up when he’s done shaving.  Sounds easy enough, but even the most simple of acts can be a sign of sacrificial love, especially when it goes against what we might want to do or what we would just do naturally if left to our own accord.

 It seemed like a million thoughts ran through my mind in less than a minute.  If God’s two greatest commandments are to love Him and then to love our neighbors as ourselves (Matt 22:37-39) I thank God for His unlimited patience (1 Tim 1:16) and His Grace, because I began to see so clearly my own selfishness and how much room I have to grow when it comes to this kind of love.  

 I hear it all the time,”just love people”.  That’s all we have to do is to love people.  

 But what does that mean? 

 I mean, I think I love people and I think I love God.  I know that sometimes I get it right, but perhaps I have more room to grow than I ever before realized.  Tonight, at the end of the class I found myself face to face with the reality of my own selfishness (something that has been coming to the surface for me recently).  I saw it in those times I chose not to obey God.  I saw it in the spiritual tantrums I have every so often.  And as I looked around at the shared room I had taken over in my house, I saw that blatant selfishness in how I live and serve (or don’t serve) my roommates.  Conviction fell hard.  I love and I’m learning to love, but so seldom does that love seem to extend beyond me, myself, and I. 

 The beautiful example of sacrificially loving one’s spouse left me wide-eyed and convinced of the lack of sacrifice within the love I claim to give.  On one hand I found myself in awe and extremely comforted by the sacrificial love that is displayed so perfectly to us in Christ.  On the other hand, I was convicted by the reality of my own lack of such love.  Seeing how I deal with what I’ve been given today, my mind turned to one of the things my heart longs for most – a spouse – my heart was challenged by the question of whether I could ever love a spouse with this kind of sacrificial love…especially when it comes to simple, everyday actions that seem little enough but, in turn, communicate love and respect in a huge way. 

 By God’s grace…perhaps one day I will.

 And by God’s grace (until then, and thereafter) He’ll continue to teach me what it really means to love Him and those around me.

The Value of Life

“And now, compelled by the Spirit I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there.  I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me.  However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me – the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.” (Acts 20:22-24) 

A few days ago I sat attentive to amazing business and church leaders.  I listened as CEOs for non-profits and major corporations spoke about their experiences as leaders and their walks with Christ.  At the end of 2 incredible days of challenging messages, Bill Hybels, the Senior Pastor of Willow Creek Community Church ended the conference with a talk on the life and ministry of Mother Theresa – the message he wanted to convey was an exhortation to live with a “carte blanche yielded-ness” to Christ.  During his talk he referenced Paul and the verses above.  

With the exception of a few lines, my notes for the conference end there.  I listened as he spoke and thought as my eyes wandered over these verses over, and over… and over.  I had an interesting feeling that I should probably just camp out on these verses for a while.  

So this is what I’ve been thinking… 

Paul, knowing the hardship that would await him, declared that his life was worth nothing.  I guess I would translate this as, “I’m not scared and I’m willing to die if only I’m able to continue living out the purpose set before me”.  Paul knew what would happen, all the bad things and suffering he would face, but he marched forward anyway.   

I can’t help but wonder if the inverse would also be true.  If it wasn’t about enduring pain and suffering, but rather living in sacrifice with unmet needs and desires, would Paul say the same thing, would he still consider it nothing.   

The thing that caught my attention was not with regards to oppression of facing death in sharing the Gospel.  The area that I felt convicted by were these other ridiculously selfish areas of my life that I so often distract me from living out a life that’s more glorifying to God.  As I’ve thought about this verse I’ve challenged myself with the same idea: 

Is my life worth nothing compared to living a life of testimony to the Gospel? 

It seems that what Paul (and perhaps God) sees as primary – testifying to the grace of the Lord – I’ve somehow made secondary or tertiary in my own life.  That which makes up ones life (security, safety, dreams, desires, etc) and should possibly be inferred as secondary or tertiary by Paul’s statement, I have made primary in my life.  And by primary, I mean the focus.  

My focus has, for a long while now, moved away from the sharing of the Gospel…at least as of primary importance.  Instead I focus on my singleness/desire for a husband & family, whether I should go to seminary or get my MBA, whether I should stay in Maryland or relocate, whether I should attend 6 weddings or 5, what roles I should fill and what titles I should attain in ministry, each of my confusions and complexities…the list could go on.  When I think about Paul and his assertion that life (especially when weighed against the sharing Truth) means nothing I can’t help but realize that I’m letting factors (while of fair importance in my, or anyone’s life) that should be second or third tier to God’s purpose get in the way of that purpose and plan. 

 If I were to stay single
If I were to go to Seminary
If I were to get an MBA
If I were to relocate
If I were to retire and start my own business… 

Regardless of what I were to do, it should be NOTHING to me…especially when compared to the understanding that I am called by God as a co-laborer and have been given Truth and a purpose to share truth to those around me.  If pursuing that one fact meant that my desires would go un-met or decisions would go un-made…would I be okay with that?

 Can I, somehow, be as eager as Paul to count my life (and all that would define my life) nothing for the sake of God’s purposes?