Turning Into Love

 So a couple friends just visited Alaska this past week. It was the first time here for one of them. I wasn't expecting it to be such a revealing visit but turned out, it was. For all our known friendship, I've visited her world - been to her house, supported her efforts, been the restaurants she enjoys, etc. She's heard all about Alaska - about my life here, how much I love this place, etc. She's seen pictures and heard stories of it's beauty and adventure. But she's never lived it. And I didn't realize how much that had affected our friendship...until now. 

I was fascinated to see how a week of being around my world - seeing my house, meeting my friends, eating at the restaurants I enjoy, taking in the scenery of Alaska - was changing my friend's perceptions about my life, who I am, and what's important to me. Because, for all the years we've known each other, we've always been vastly different people in pretty much all categories. We don't vote the same, live in similar places, practice the same faith, etc. Love has always kept us close but we haven't always had a lot to unite on. But this trip kind of changed that. Because we met on a common ground we'd never had before. And I think this will have built bridges across divides that we had a harder time understanding beforehand. 

 All this brought me to a revelation about loving people....a topic I've been camped out on for several weeks as I've been reading Bob Goff's books "Love Does" and "Everybody, Always." It's hard to fully understand people or know how to love them well in ways that will speak to them best if you've never put yourself in their context or met them on their own turf - literally or figuratively.

In thinking back to conversations I've had with people over the years where they tried to paint a certain picture of my life - what I should do, where I should go, how I live, what I should deem important, etc. - and usually not a picture that reflected the real me at all... I see now that those statements were spoken from the others' point of view and not from any context of my actual life. If any of those people had actually "done life" with me for any length of time, they would probably see me in a different light. And maybe I'd say the same about them. 

When you begin to love people the way Jesus did...life suddenly stops becoming all about getting your own point across and instead about getting His love across. Life becomes less about winning arguments and trying to "fix" people and more about making sure that they are given all the grace that they need. Life ceases to be about forcing people to get to where we are and, instead, we are willing in humility to go meet them where THEY are.

Turning into love means that your existence stops becoming all about defining other people's lives for them but rather, letting your own life be defined in such a way that you no longer feel the need to paint other's reality for them because you're too busy watching God paint yours! Patience becomes a valued virtue because you start to see that everybody needs grace, everybody needs love - always. Nobody is where they ought to be, and nobody is where they most likely want to be. But if you can begin to notice where they're better than they used to be and dole out all the support you can on that front, you will start to see that others will open up their souls to you and you will truly feel alive yourself. Learning how to love well transforms us. Jesus Himself promised us it would be that way. 

We discover the heart of God in a greater way when we have deep and gracious love for one another. Not just the people we like to love...but especially the ones who are difficult and challenging. The ones we think just "don't get it" or who are so opposite of us we feel like we can't even come close to understanding "how they could live or think like that." When we close the distance and lay down our fight, when we agree to meet those people on their ground, when we extend the Master's hand instead of extending our criticism and our judgement...we attract these people to the Savior by our patience, our long-suffering, and our willingness to accept them the way they are instead of trying to change them. 

It is God's responsibility to change and transform people. We are called to show His heart to them as He does that. While we can be His mouthpiece and point others to Him, it is not our place to try to assess their weaknesses and attempt to get them to what we perceive as a greater level of achievement or personal betterment. If we only walked a mile in their shoes, what stories might those shoes tell...

For God so loved that He gave...

What amazing possibilities might there be if we did the same? 

When you give of your one life when you have every reason to judge, when you choose to pass out love like you have no limit to it when you have every reason to condemn, when you intentionally go out of your comfort zone into the uncomfortable, you transform into a powerful agent of redemptive love through the message of hope in the name of Jesus. 

Love is often inconvenient and undeniably uncomfortable. Because it calls us out of what we think is best for us and forces us to think of what's best for our neighbor and friend. It calls us to bravely live the command from Christ that in order to be His disciples we must be known for how we love. And we cannot do this if we aren't taking in grace deeply so that grace may flow out deeply to those around us. 

Neither of us can turn into love on our own. If anything, our lives are a constant testament to how little we actually know about loving the way we ought. But the one thing that does give us the ability the do the un-natural and love the un-lovable is when you've been so drowned in a Love you can't explain or grasp that you simply start to take on it's force. It begins to make you into someone you can only dream of becoming. That's the power of Gospel-infused favor and grace. It turns you into the opposite of what you naturally are so that you become more like the One whose child you are. 

Next time you find it difficult to meet someone in the middle, go for a hug instead of unsolicited advice. Go for a word of compliment when you would actually like to condemn. For, in that moment, you can choose to become more Disciple than Pharisee, prompting radical love to be your motivation instead of your opinion. You can choose to give them what you think they don't deserve. For, didn't your Savior do the same? And if His example is your guide, then it really is possible to so love that you give... empty yourself of self so that you are driven to help others discover their potential and their purpose...even if it looks different than yours.