Loving means what??

Well, I know yesterday I shared about not wanting to pray for someone. I was holding onto that list of wrongs for a good part of my day yesterday & clinging to some unforgiveness. I went to bed feeling justified for having been the dealer of a day of silence, which is NOT part of my personality, I am very talkative on most days. I know that going to bed with this frustration towards someone will make for a restless night, yet I made the choice to carry it to bed. Then this morning I was trying to remember as many of those hurts as I could, so I still didn't have to forgive. But God...His heart breaks when His children hurt each other. He covered so many of those hurts with His perfect love & brought me peace & a desire to dig deeper into why it breaks His heart. 

So many times I seem to want to justify why I am hurt, or angry. I forget that God already knows the why's & the who's & that in that knowledge He is working, not only in them...but in me as well. It's easy to point my finger at the one I blame for hurting me & find cover in their part of the pain. That cover seems to blind me to my own part in the situation. It makes it easy to hand them the blame & for me to sit back in my self righteousness & shake my head. Only a single, but very important, problem with this attitude...they aren't the ones suffering. I don't mean painful suffering, I mean carrying a heavy burden, kind of suffering. The kind of suffering that doesn't let me move on...doesn't allow me to learn what God is teaching me. It limits my ability to be molded into the woman He created me to be. My choice to hold onto what I am choosing to be offended by, greatly affects where my focus is.

I assume they're also holding onto this hurt too, pretty quickly my assumptions lead to my own expectations not being met. They have no idea of what my expectations are, so they can't possibly meet them. Soon that unmet expectation becomes frustration & my frustration becomes a deep, lingering bitterness. When the bitterness takes root, it will bury itself as far into my heart & mind as it can reach. That ugly root of bitterness can block people's view of who God is making me. It can block my view of who God is creating it others too. It's reach depends on me holding onto my own suffering & hurts. As long as I cling to those wounds, the roots will keep going deeper. If I am completely honest, many times in my life, I've had such deeply rooted bitterness I still haven't found them. 

Those deeper rooted hurts are what God is digging up in me. The old me wants to find someone to blame, mostly because I am afraid to face this part of who I am. It's been my defense mechanism for decades...to bury the hurts deep & hold onto what they make me feel. To carry the pain as a banner for what kind of person this person was to me. Making sure that everyone who sees my banner, sides with me. They see why I am holding onto the why's against the who's. But God...He never leaves me in my pit of hurts. Today He took me deeper into my own dirt, while He had me searching for the GOLD in him. He reminded me that this is a man I love & that more than that, he's a man that He Himself loves. Dirt & all, He loves us.  

As I sat talking to God during my workout, He reminded me how much He loves me. I heard His gentle reminder of Jesus's directions to me in John 13:34-35...

"So I give you now a new comandment: Love each other just as much as I have loved you. For when you demonstrate the same love I have for you by loving one another, everyone will know that you're my true followers." 

...Oh how I love The Passion Translation. I seem to read several translations, most of the time trying to gain a deeper understanding of what God is teaching me. Today I went straight to TPT. I wanted a gentle whisper. God never fails to meet me wherever I am willing to surrender to His calling & when He does, He brings the wisdom I am seeking. Always, without fail.

I read these words & my flesh began to rise up & answer, "I have loved him like you love me. My hearts greatest desire is for him & everyone who You place in my path to see You in me, to seek You because they see You in me. How can I love him anymore like You?" With this question came a mighty response! He didn't hesitate to take me directly to 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 in TPT...I love these verses in any translation, but in TPT they can NOT be misunderstood. There is no confusion as to what He means by "love them like I do." 

Love is LARGE and incredibly patient. Love is gentle and consistently kind to ALL. It refuses to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else. Love does NOT brag about one's achievements nor inflate its own importance. Love does NOT traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek it's own honor. Love is NOT easily irritated or quick to take offense. Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds NO delight in what is wrong. Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it NEVER gives up.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Suddenly I understood. I really wasn't loving him. I was not respecting him. I was not being consistently kind. I was not only easily irritated, but I was delighting in believing I was right. I wasn't being a safe place for him, nor was I being gentle. Yet I was expecting him to see Jesus in me, to know me as a true believer of Jesus...hmmm seems like I was more interested in bragging to God about how I was "loving him"  than I was about hearing how to truly love him. I was chasing a confirming response from God. I wanted Him to sit with me & vent His frustration with me about him, just like me. Instead God wanted me to see my part, He wanted me to learn to love, really love. He wanted to sit with me & show me the answer to my question..."how can I love him anymore like You?" He wanted to dig up the root that I was trying to bury. He wanted to replace it with a root of His perfect love. God knows my hearts greatest desire. He knows I want to love like He does. So He refused to allow me to sit in the lie that "I was loving him like God loves me."

I finally sat down & let God speak His wisdom, when I heard Him whisper, "anyone can find his flaws, be the one to recognize his goodness. Love him like I love you." That's where I am now. Still working on releasing him from my expectations  & finding the love that God wants to share through me. Even if he has no idea of the battle that I have been fighting, if he never shows me love the way I have learned to feel loved, I will choose to remember that love is patient & kind, generous with joy & purposely hard...purposely a challenge...purposely buried in God. If love was easy what would it cost us? If loving came easy it would be so easy to toss away those with dirt that is still being washed away. It may be easier to love those who we want to love...but to love those who are difficult to love brings so much more joy to us...not only us but to God. Loving people who we are angry with or who hurt us allows God to love them through us & they will recognize true lovers of Christ.

Jesus reminds us in Luke 6:32 about loving those who love us back when He says, "Are you really showing true love by loving those who love you back? Even those who don't know God will do that. Are you really showing compassion when you do good deeds only to those who do deeds to you? Even those who don't know God will do that?" 

Even those who don't know God love & help those who love them, so what will show the same kind of love as Jesus has in those of us who do know God? The only thing that will is loving those who people who nonbelievers can't love. The ones who we consider frustrating, or have hurt our feelings. The ones who don't meet our expectations, or who have no idea how to love us back. Loving them with the kind of love Jesus loves us.

Are you carrying a offence? Do you feel the need to explain to God why? Well please get with God, ask Him to teach you what His definition of love is, to show you the differences between the way He loves & the way you love. The person who chooses to be offended is the one carrying the biggest burden...surrendering the need to be right or to make them see your way, will free up your mind, heart & soul to learn to love like Jesus. 

That's exactly what I did this morning. Today I found a joy in praying for him. Instead of searching for his dirt, I asked God to show me my own dirt & asked Him to wash it away...along with the hurt I was holding onto.