It’s so easy to miss the point. It’s easy to get caught up in everything that doesn’t matter, even when I think I’m focusing on the truth. Even when I think I’m focusing on God.
Love.
That’s it. That’s all that really matters, right? That’s all God really wants from us. It’s such a simple word and yet so complex. Other languages have multiple words for love, but the English language often feels a bit lacking in this department.
There really are so many different kinds of love. There’s the love we have for our family, the love we have for our friends, and the love we have for a perfect stranger with whom we empathize. It’s all special and beautiful.
The kind of love that matters most, though? Agape. The Greek word for the kind of love that comes from outside of us and our flawed, selfish, broken perspectives:
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, I gain nothing.4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[b] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. {1 Corinthians 13:1-7 ESV}”It occurred to me this morning that, even though I know perfection isn’t required and I believe my sins are covered by Christ, I still often berate myself for not trying hard enough or being good enough. I wake up in the morning and so quickly begin to focus on what’s wrong with me and what’s wrong with my life. I make a big deal out of everything that doesn’t go my way. I praise God for his goodness, pray for clarity, open my bible, walk away feeling convicted and then, when something as simple as my children and/or dogs making a mess inevitably happens, it all falls apart. I lose my cool in my need to control and fail at the role of “perfect mother”. Again.
Like that was ever the point!
It’s probably not as profound as it felt this morning, but the point is to find and hold onto the kind of love that radiates through me and allows me to feel joy, when things aren’t going my way. Not just joy for my life in spite of my struggles, but joy for those who don’t have the same struggles.
Right? I mean, there are so many reasons I can come up with to focus on everything that’s gone wrong in my own life and compare myself with others. We all have pain and we all live in a world that constantly points out what we don’t have and tells us to want more. I think the point of it all, what God really wants from me, is to get to a point where someone else’s life doesn’t change how I feel about my life. I think He wants me to get to the point where I can always look at the woman who has everything I thought I ever wanted, and it doesn’t even occur to me to that I don’t because my joy for her is overflowing and I’m not comparing my life to hers. That’s the point where I’m dying to self and bringing change to a broken world because it’s something I can’t do on my own.
Let me tell you, I’ve felt that before and it’s incredible! It’s better than anything I could want for myself.
I’ve always been too focused on what’s fair. Since I was little. I like things to make sense and, when they don’t (about 99.9% of the time), it eats away at me. It causes a lot of problems, honestly. It takes pride to believe that everything should be fair for me. Life’s not fair for anyone. We all have weaknesses and we all have struggles that make us feel like we can’t go on. We all have different roles in life and, because of those roles, we will always have different blessings and different hardships.
I wake up every morning acutely aware both of what I have that I don’t deserve and what I want and I try to make sense of it all. Every.single.day. It’s good to be aware of my blessings and shortcomings, but it’s not my job to figure out why. It’s my job to let go of fair and just move forward, choosing love and finding contentment with what I have. Because love is life and everything else is just… not.
🙂
nice post! I love you!!