Tough Love

What is love?

That's actually been a running joke among some people I know. But I ask it today without the mocking voice and with sincere intent. What is it? What does it look like? How is it expressed? Does it last? Can we depend on it? Can we embody it? Can we only tap into it once in a while?
I found out recently that a friend of mine is in the process of divorce. He's not that old, and not been married that long. I don't know any of the details. But I know I used to look at him and say to myself, 'he knows what love is.' And right now my heart aches for him.

Isn't it surprising how the people we depend on for certain things or look up to in certain situations can be just like us? Shaky. Unreliable. Unsure. Hurting.

If love is patient, and love is kind, not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude, not insisting on its own way or irritable or resentful, not rejoicing in wrongdoing but in truth, bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all thing, and NEVER ENDING..... what does that look like? That is not me. I am many of those nots and not enough of those is-s. It is not you. I'm sure you have the trait that is opposite of at least one of these characteristics.

God is love. Yes, I understand this, as much as my mortal mind will allow me to do so. But we are not God. And I'm not trying to limit the power of Christ within us by any means; I am, however, trying to be realistic in pointing out our human nature.
I am fearful of never being able to experience love. Maybe more specifically, I am fearful of putting my trust in love the way that humans express it. To overgeneralize to the point of falsehood: I do not trust God's followers. I trust LOVE Himself; I pour myself to Him because I know that He will not let me down. But I find myself guarded to the 'little Christs', the 'little Loves'.
Because quite honestly, we fail.

The more I watch us fail at practicing love, the more fearful I get. The more guarded I become. I've built high walls around my heart so that the only communication that happens is vertical. I've shut off the possibility of being vulnerable with other people; maybe not completely, but enough that I've begun to notice just how distant I've become. I was listening to a sermon last night that said that when you form a friendship, you are risking getting hurt. And the deeper that friendship is, the more hurt you will be by betrayal. Look at Jesus and Judas. He brought Judas into the twelve, He gave him the money box (trust), He washed his feet (servanthood), and He gave him the bread dipped in wine (the sign in ancient times of the host finding great value in someone, considering them highly favored and special to them, a good friend).

And Christ handed him that bread knowing that a mere moment later, he would leave and get everything together to turn Him over. Ultimate betrayal. And..... He did it anyway.

Today especially I have a hard time feeling love. Life's like that, right? When everything hits you at once and you just don't know how else to respond. I do not want to love anyway. I do not want to give off huge parts of myself that put me at risk for great hurt. Because human love is unreliable. From anyone. (Except sometimes moms.)

But it's the greatest commandment. Love the Lord your God with all of you. And the second is like it, not underneath it or its afterthought: love your neighbor as yourself. And if I value my own heart enough to be hesitant of what I put out there, I should also value someone else's heart enough not to be the cause of that betrayal, right?

Love is hard. But love is asked of us. And I have to believe that somehow it's worth it.

Intellectual Scripture

I'm visiting my sister at college. Not that this is unusual for me; I've been up to visit at least half a dozen times since August. But, as I'm sure every graduate who returns can agree, it is much different in many aspects than the time you spent there yourself.

I was in the shower this morning, of all places, and someone had put up a devotional on the wall. First of all, I think that's fantastic, and wish I would have thought of it while I was in the dorms. Secondly, the author said that she had been, "reading a little A.W. Tozer", which made me giggle, because it is my firm belief that Tozer writes nothing that is "little". Everything I ever seem to read of his is mind-blowing and inspirational. So I had a small chuckle at this.

But my third point is my strongest one. I read the devotional, liked it, tried to think about it while in the shower. The author seemed to start out with strong language to me, and I appreciated her style. (And I keep using the feminine pronouns because it's an all-girls dorm, and I am pretty sure no guys would go in to put devos in the girls' showers. I would find that entirely creepy.) It wasn't until a few minutes later did I realize that I had read the devotional without looking at the Scripture at the top. And the strong intro was really only an extension of the Scripture.

I had to stand still for a moment, with hot water pouring down my back and ask myself, "What does that say about me?" Let me explain: I consider myself an intellectual enthusiast. While I may think that I hold some amount of intellect, I am more interested in the pursuit of intellect, and the discussions that I feel perpetuate a growth in knowledge and express evidence of it. So, I was quite excited to hear someone else's thoughts about the content matter. So excited, in fact, that I paid no attention to the Scriptural basis for the thoughts.

Since when have I decided that there are parts of Scripture that are 'less intelligent' than others? This particular passage was a section from the psalms; did I somehow think that it was less important than what was written by this girl? It's not like I didn't see it; it was a paragraph in italics at the top of the page. If I want a chunk of Scripture that I can really dig into, I head to the New Testament, and I'll save the Psalms for an emotional catharsis. Where did I learn how to categorize Scripture like that and not allow the full impact of God's Word to transcend my mental boundaries? This is only one of those things that is running through my mind at a fast pace and causing me a little bit of grief today.

Geez, way to go, self. Now knock it off.