I choose to love

May 5^th, 2009

Recently, I have been dealing with an issue of love.  A close friend of mine hurt me greatly and I spent months watching the wound become swollen, with signs of infections.  My heart that was already so fragile bled uncontrollably, even with the applied bandages I had administered.  At first I thought I need to forgive...yeah that's it I thought. Brilliant! 

While God dealt with the forgiveness and got everyone else to be in tune with that one message, still something was missing.  I thought he was finished, lesson learnt moving on.  Yet, with this one person there was something more.  Others I forgave and to see them again, my heart flowed with joy to greet them.  But there was still this bruise, this pain that would not be released.  Instead, the festering continued and my wound sent sharp pain signals to my brain, which conjured up images of the person's destruction and imminent downfall.  I still was not right. 

God continued to work.  Love him, he said.  I do, I replied.  Love him, he said.  I don’t want to, I replied.  Tell somebody, God is patient and merciful and ever so kind.  I went to church; they read the scripture verse from 1 John 4 ¹⁹We love because he first loved us. ²⁰If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. ²¹And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

God told me send a gift to this person and I didn't want to. He told me to love and I didn’t want to.  I listened to those who told me "Don’t do it!"  I reasoned to myself, they are so right.  Why would God ask me to do that, I am not the one at fault....I am blameless!  Right? 
 But you know God, He is not one to start something in us and then leave it unfinished.  I said the other night, "God's not talking to me", in much the same way my 3y/o niece says it when she is leaving a message on the voice mail and no-one responds.  Do you know what he said?  "I am but you are not listening".
 Ladies, and gentlemen, this is not me trying to put my business out there for you to side or not side with me.  This is me telling you that God requires of us to do the opposite of the world.  We are called as followers, or desiring to be followers of Christ to a higher standard than the rest.  We are called to love in and out of season, despite the actions of others.  In Ephesians Paul said to be imitators of God.  God gave us his son while we did not know him, or even wanted to know him, because of love.  How much more so shall we love our brothers who we can see, as much as God loves us?
 In all this, God has shown me that my hands are even dirtier than the offender of my heart.  I allowed anger to transcend into un-forgiveness and then transform into evil, which is sin, which can only end in death.  Yet, I am shown mercy by a forgiving loving God.  How then can I deny this brother the same covering of love from my umbrella?

Has this been easy? No.  The hardest part however has been the self reflection.  It was to see the accuser pointing his fingers towards me and saying rightfully, “look at what she has done and she calls herself a Christian”.  It is the knowing that I was wrong, because I allowed myself to be caught up in the majority of voices that said "Crucify him" and so I did all over again. 

But today, I choose to love.  Today I choose to forgive. Today I choose to be an imitator of God.  How about you?