Love More

Wow. Sometimes you hear one of those messages at church that just kicks your teeth in (in the best sort of way!). Today was one of those days. It was the final message in Pastor Dale’s series on Restoring Christmas, and this one was entitled, Love More. Wow. Love cannot be talked about enough I think, and he presented three ways that we can promote the growth of love in our lives. First, our love grows when we forgive. This part was encouraging because God has done some awesome work in my heart in this area. But what stuck out to me was that even when we forgive we can still experience a lot of pain from the circumstance. I’ve really only had one situation in my life where I struggled with a major hurt and extending forgiveness. And even now, I can honestly say that I’ve forgiven–completely and totally forgiven, but sometimes my mind will wander, when I’m in the shower or cooking dinner or going for a walk, and if I don’t harness my thoughts, they will naturally go into the whole situation again and I could let myself feel all those emotions and relive the whole thing. There is absolutely nothing beneficial about this–so I choose, each and every time, to refuse to think about it, to refuse to let my mind go there. What’s done is done and the punishment has been poured out on my precious Savior on the cross. There is no need for me to relive past painful things. CHrist died to set us free. My final thought on this topic was that the true litmus test for evaluating whether I am truly freed from the hurt is determining whether I can truly and honestly rejoice in that person’s blessing, joy, and prosperity. If I honestly can, praise God–that is authentic evidence that my heart is free. If I cannot, then that is evidence that there’s still work to be done. I pray that I, and that we all, let God do that work in our hearts so we can honestly rejoice in the good of those who have injured us.

Secondly, our love grows when we accept others. This point had two nuggets that really stuck out to me. First, he talked about the fact that love does not need to be right. Yes, we are to stand up for truth, but we are first and foremost to seek to understand each other. Love always seeks FIRST to understand before it seeks to be understood. Pow. That hit me. I always want to be understood–and so as long as that remains my primary motive, I will miss out on loving and understanding and accepting others. We need to accept people instead of being right. This doesn’t mean we are theologically wishy washy (Jesus wasn’t!) but it means we accept others and love them even if we don’t agree. Also, we accept that others are flawed. It’s ok! Colossians 3:13 says “Make allowances for other’s faults.” I am so guilty of expecting Jeff to do everything perfect and anticipate needs and read my mind. I do the same with my parents. I’ll write more on my New Year’s Resolutions later, but one big area I’m asking God to help me grow is in being more gracious toward others making more room for lack, the same way I hope others will do for me!

Lastly, our love grows as we choose to love others. Love, of course, is a choice. So, the banner of my New Year’s Resolutions this year is “Love More.” I will flesh out that into more concrete goals and resolutions, but my prayer is that in 2008 I would be a woman who is characterized by love and grace. God has given us a spirit of love (2 Timothy 1:7) and I pray He would help me grow in it.