Jesus, You Have Won Me...

Giving love does not mean that you will always receive love and to be honest with you, I think that sucks. I think one of the greatest gifts that we have been given is to show love and to be shown love and if I were in control, the two would always occur simutaneously. But, thankfully, I'm not in control.

Because if I were, then choosing to love wouldn't be a choice. It would be forced and I strongly believe that love does not force itself. Jesus didn't force me to love Him. He could have. He could have threatened me with Hell until I finally decided to choose Him so that I could avoid Hell, but that's not love. That's fear.

And perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18).

Jesus doesn't want me to follow Him or live obediently to Him because I'm afraid of what will happen if I don't. He wants me to do those things because I love Him. He wants to cast out the fear, so that we can experience perfect love. He is the perfect example of this notion that giving love does not mean that you will always receive love. The Bible tells us that "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13)". He died for us exemplfying the greatest love and yet still there are moments, days, months, even years,where we choose not to love Him back with our words or with our actions.

One of the sweetest things I love about Jesus is the fact that He doesn't force Himself. He lets me choose Him. He wants to be a choice. I love that He who is all powerful and mighty draws me to Him not by His strength, but His gentleness. I'm rereading a book right now that blew my mind the first time I read it and is blowing my mind the second time too. As I was reading there was a part that I must have reread a dozen times and haven't stopped thinking about. The author (Wayne Jacobsen) is talking about how God loves us to His arms, rather than scares us to them. He writes: "With incredible patience and love, he coaxes us our of our fears to embrace him. He waits for that moment when suddenly we are safer in him than in any other place we could be. You may be timid at first, but turn toward him and abandon yourself to trust him in the smallest way you can. He understands how afraid you are that you'll be disappointed once again. But he's still there, patiently extending his hand to You. He will try to get closer, until you cower away in fear. Then he will back off so as not to add to your pain, hoping his gentleness will one day win you over"

When I read that, I have to stop to catch my breath. I can't read that without being flooded with emotion. Not only does He love me enough to reach out His hand to me and remain there until I take it, but He also loves me enough to back off so that I'm not forced to take His hand. Seriously, Holy Moly. I have been completely won over by His love.

I think it's easy to think that loving others always looks and sounds a certain way, but I'm realizing more and more that I know nothing. Often times, my love is a selfish kind of love "I think this is what's best for you, so I'm going to love you that way" or " I think you need to hear this so because I love you, I'm going to tell you this." But Jesus is reminding me that sometimes loving one another doesn't always look and sound how we expect it to. Sometimes loving one another is backing off so I don't add to someone else's pain. Sometimes loving one another is holding out your hand, even though no one might ever take it. Look at the story of the prodigal son. If I were that father, there would have been consequences not because I didn't love my son, but because I loved him and wanted him to choose better next time. I think that's the expected reaction, but the father in the story runs to Him while He is still on road and comes home to throw the biggest party of the year. His reaction was a completely unexpected expression of love, but it is undeniably loving. When the way I love only looks and sounds like the way I expect love to look and sound, I think love has been put in a box and in doing so, I've moved from loving selflessly to loving selfishly. I've moved from giving love even if I haven't received it to loving when love is received, which limits the power of love.

And why would I ever want to limit love? God is love.