When we decide to follow Christ, we are given a huge and beautiful responsibility:
To love others.
We are given the opportunity to lay down our own needs and wants and to serve one another in love.
Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction.
~2 Corinthians 1:3-4
It’s actually not a choice to love others- it’s a command. And it happens because we were loved first. We received love from Christ, and now we get to spread that love to a very broken world.
It’s a privilege.
However, when I think about all the people that God has placed in my life to love, I feel overwhelmed. There’s a lot of people, and a lot of pain. A lot of complicated stories and murky waters. Something cold in my heart tells me to back away, to not become too involved or engaged- because I already have enough to deal with. I don’t need to absorb others hurts. I don’t need more pain in my life. There’s a fierce protective mechanism inside of me that tells me to shut others out. To only get so close. If I get too close I might get burned, or lost in someone else’s story.
What a strange idea.
Sometimes I feel like people need too much from me, and I don’t have enough to give. I wish I had the energy to love everyone as they need to be loved. I wish I could always disregard myself and have a heart only for those around me. But it can be so exhausting.
Because I’m looking at it the wrong way.
In my pride and selfishness, I’m taking it on as completely my own responsibility. It is a responsibility, but it’s not fully mine. The way that I love others is not by sheer effort and determination. My weak and selfish heart could never handle that burden; I am so limited as a human- I don’t have the capacity to love the way I am supposed to.
I can’t do it on my own. I can’t love well- not when I am trying to do it by myself.
Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
~1 John 4:7-8
Here’s the beautiful part: God loves for us. He is Love.
So the love we have for others does not come from ourself, from our own efforts. When we choose to love the people God has put in our lives, we are not left alone to figure out how to do it. He will show us how, and can even change our feelings about people (although love is by no means just a feeling). He will give us His spirit of discernment, to help us see what they really need instead of what they may want. To see our specific role in their lives, instead of trying to be everything for them.
We can’t be everything for anyone.
Loving people is not about pleasing them, or making sure they are comfortable all the time. It is about pointing them back to the Father, who is love Himself.
When I know to my core that I am deeply loved by God, I am able to love others well. It’s as simple as that. Our relationship with Him will overflow into our relationships with others, for better or for worse. When I am trying to love people in my own strength, my love will not be strong enough.
And then it’s no longer really a responsibility at all. Then I am free to enjoy people because I am not trying so hard- because I am not carrying a burden that is not mine to bear. And something wild and natural begins to happen: real love begins to grow as I see the person for who they are and meet them where they are at. I can see how God is showing up in our relationship- how He has orchestrated things so that we would connect in a certain way, through a certain conversation or circumstance. It only happens when I remember that it’s not up to me.
I’m so grateful that the best way to love others is by loving God the most. Because God is easy to love, whereas people are not. God’s character is perfect and consistent, and He has proven Himself faithful over and over again. I never have to doubt His motives with me, or question His authority in my life. I know He will always be there for me, and knows just the way to speak to my heart.
A love like that has to be shared.
rhythms of grace 