Sometimes I wonder why loving people can be so difficult. And ironically, sometimes I wonder why it is so easy to love people.
I mean, I think we all know the answer, Love should be simple, but many times it is too complicated. Or rather as a brother said in one of his recent blogs "Life is simple and we people complicate things."
And as my roommate is playing a nice tune in the background while I'm writing this at 2:30 a.m. I am reminded of just an example of a truly mended friendship. Something that was good, turned sour, and then became even stronger after going through a long process of rebuilding what was broken down.
Unfortunately, I feel as if this can't be so with all of the broken relationships that I have. People that I cannot seem to forgive, and cannot imagine that I can forgive. Why? I guess it's something I'm learning. And many times I catch myself muttering negative (to say the least) words in an attempt to make me even more bitter and even more numb to what I am feeling.
But I know that I need to forgive, even through the hardest times. I must learn to Love. After all, 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. (1 John 4:20)
So I can't really say I love God if I cannot forgive my fellow brothers or sisters. And because I do Love God, I am then obligated to Love all my fellow mankind. And IF I do Love my fellow mankind, then I must indeed be forgiving, because "love keeps no records of wrongs."
It's true Love is simple, simply hard. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that loving will be easy, and I think that is the one thing that I have to realize. Nothing is ever, as my students would say, "easy peasey lemon squeezy." Why? Simply because we are imperfect humans in an imperfect world.
phileo- Love in a friendship way, emotional and reciprocal
and
"Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to doesn't mean they don't love you will all that they have" -Unknown (Taken from another brother's blog)
I truly do not know what I am saying anymore, I can't even remember what I said on the last paragraph. But I guess the gist of it remains in the title of this post.
CS Lewis puts it very nicely in the chapter "Charity" in Mere Christianity.
"When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him." (Mere Christianity) Therefore, if I behave as if I "hated" someone, I will presently come to hate him right? Unfortunately, I need to find a way of breaking these negative thoughts. It's going to be tough, rough, and hard, but it is indeed something I MUST take care of before it gets out of hand. How am I going to do this? not sure yet, I have much busy work to attend to that I hope I can push this out of my mind for just another week or two.
To summarize my problem: If I do not solve the issue(s) that I am dealing with, I will (inevitably) grow to hate a person(s), and if it comes to that point, according to the Bible it makes no sense that I love God. So to make sure I can Love God with all of my heart, mind, soul, I must learn to Love in obligation, because only then can I realize how strong the power of Love really is.
--I am not going to take the time (for now) to try to make this post cohesive, this is definitely a lnr which probably will make no sense when I read it again in the morning--
i liked this post.
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