The Blessing of Love
Posted: November 7th, 2007, 6:12 am
My blessing today is love.
One of my favorite songwriters is a guy named Don Chaffer. We got to know each other when we were both part of a community of believers in Midtown Kansas City. He wrote a song called "Completely Known". When I asked him about it, he said one of the reasons he accepted Jesus was because he feared he would never be completely known and loved by anyone, and he had finally understood that Jesus not only would, He already did.
For some folks, among who I number, it can be very hard to love those around us, despite the command of scripture that we love everyone as Jesus does, accepting them in their entirety and loving them regardless of what we might know about them. We are commanded to love them enough to not only die for them, but to live for them, which takes longer.
The difficulty some of us have in loving people usually comes from being hurt by people. A dog who has been beaten down enough times learns to avoid those who beat him. People respond pretty much the same way when they are beaten down, but there are elements of anger, resentment, & unforgiveness humans carry away from hurt that dogs don't. These things perpetuate the fear, and scar our souls.
I don't know if the enemy goes after some people more viciously that way, or if some of us are just more susceptible than others. For whatever reason, these things eventually cause a fear that makes some of us distrust and want to protect ourselves from others because they might hurt us too.
There is a famous passage in Doestoevski's "Brothers Karamazov" called "The Grand Inquisitor". In it, the Inquisitor tells Jesus that the church no longer needs or wants Him, that people are not interested, can't understand, and don't know what to do with the freedom He offers, and that they will invariably trade freedom for security. What the Inquisitor says, his description of mankind is a very strong portrayal of what fear eventually does to people, even Christian people.
Obviously, not all fear is wrong; how can it be, when the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom? But fear can become a voluntary prison. People who let fear rule them trade freedom for security, and wind up locking themselves in a dungeon of solitude. Instead of the joy and peace a Christian can experience, the fearful live a narrow, lonely existence that has little, if any, intimacy with God or man. Maybe they have a few real friends, playmates they allow into their cells, but even with them there is always a reserve, something held back out of fear. And isolated as well as they can be from what they fear, there is never any real feeling of safety or peace. Fear doesn't allow peace.
Love is the antidote to unreasonable fear. Thankfully, God is infinitely patient, and of very tender mercies to the fearful. A person who can see Jesus modeled in the life of a Christian friend, or even a Christian who starts to seek more of Him will encounter His love.
Encountering God's love may not work an immediate healing of all the fears a person carries. Some fears are born of volitional choices, and because God will not override free will, He won't do anything about them until the person is willing to let them go. I suspect some fears become like cramped muscles, clenched so painfully tight they can't immediately release the way they should. And like a cramped muscle responds to careful massage and warmth, love and acceptance will eventually get a fearful person to release the fears that bind them.
I think it's pretty obvious that one of the many reasons why people were drawn to Jesus when he walked the earth was the fact that He loved people, and they could sense that. There is nothing more attractive than genuine love.
Love is getting to know and be known completely by someone. Being known is risky, and the more known you become, the greater the risk becomes. But there is a drive within the human heart to be loved and accepted, and it keeps us searching, regardless of risk. It's the part of us that cries out for Jesus.
The trust born out of love that binds people together takes a lot of time and shared experiences. Husbands and wives are one flesh from the day they marry, but becoming known by each other can take a lifetime of patient, loving care.
I'm 54 now. My mother, brother & sister and other family members are still with me, and I am confident of their lov I feel incredibly blessed that I have also had about 5 real friends outside my family through my whole life. I have known most of them for more than 20 years, and we've been through a lot together, enough that I believe they are friends for life, even though I haven't live near enough any of them to see them regularly. We've been through too much together, shared too much between us to let each other go. We love each other, and that is a blessing I can't thank God enough for.
One of my favorite songwriters is a guy named Don Chaffer. We got to know each other when we were both part of a community of believers in Midtown Kansas City. He wrote a song called "Completely Known". When I asked him about it, he said one of the reasons he accepted Jesus was because he feared he would never be completely known and loved by anyone, and he had finally understood that Jesus not only would, He already did.
For some folks, among who I number, it can be very hard to love those around us, despite the command of scripture that we love everyone as Jesus does, accepting them in their entirety and loving them regardless of what we might know about them. We are commanded to love them enough to not only die for them, but to live for them, which takes longer.
The difficulty some of us have in loving people usually comes from being hurt by people. A dog who has been beaten down enough times learns to avoid those who beat him. People respond pretty much the same way when they are beaten down, but there are elements of anger, resentment, & unforgiveness humans carry away from hurt that dogs don't. These things perpetuate the fear, and scar our souls.
I don't know if the enemy goes after some people more viciously that way, or if some of us are just more susceptible than others. For whatever reason, these things eventually cause a fear that makes some of us distrust and want to protect ourselves from others because they might hurt us too.
There is a famous passage in Doestoevski's "Brothers Karamazov" called "The Grand Inquisitor". In it, the Inquisitor tells Jesus that the church no longer needs or wants Him, that people are not interested, can't understand, and don't know what to do with the freedom He offers, and that they will invariably trade freedom for security. What the Inquisitor says, his description of mankind is a very strong portrayal of what fear eventually does to people, even Christian people.
Obviously, not all fear is wrong; how can it be, when the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom? But fear can become a voluntary prison. People who let fear rule them trade freedom for security, and wind up locking themselves in a dungeon of solitude. Instead of the joy and peace a Christian can experience, the fearful live a narrow, lonely existence that has little, if any, intimacy with God or man. Maybe they have a few real friends, playmates they allow into their cells, but even with them there is always a reserve, something held back out of fear. And isolated as well as they can be from what they fear, there is never any real feeling of safety or peace. Fear doesn't allow peace.
Love is the antidote to unreasonable fear. Thankfully, God is infinitely patient, and of very tender mercies to the fearful. A person who can see Jesus modeled in the life of a Christian friend, or even a Christian who starts to seek more of Him will encounter His love.
Encountering God's love may not work an immediate healing of all the fears a person carries. Some fears are born of volitional choices, and because God will not override free will, He won't do anything about them until the person is willing to let them go. I suspect some fears become like cramped muscles, clenched so painfully tight they can't immediately release the way they should. And like a cramped muscle responds to careful massage and warmth, love and acceptance will eventually get a fearful person to release the fears that bind them.
I think it's pretty obvious that one of the many reasons why people were drawn to Jesus when he walked the earth was the fact that He loved people, and they could sense that. There is nothing more attractive than genuine love.
Love is getting to know and be known completely by someone. Being known is risky, and the more known you become, the greater the risk becomes. But there is a drive within the human heart to be loved and accepted, and it keeps us searching, regardless of risk. It's the part of us that cries out for Jesus.
The trust born out of love that binds people together takes a lot of time and shared experiences. Husbands and wives are one flesh from the day they marry, but becoming known by each other can take a lifetime of patient, loving care.
I'm 54 now. My mother, brother & sister and other family members are still with me, and I am confident of their lov I feel incredibly blessed that I have also had about 5 real friends outside my family through my whole life. I have known most of them for more than 20 years, and we've been through a lot together, enough that I believe they are friends for life, even though I haven't live near enough any of them to see them regularly. We've been through too much together, shared too much between us to let each other go. We love each other, and that is a blessing I can't thank God enough for.
