Saturday, June 11, 2011

One last comment on...

I know that I have commented on this subject several times, but that is because I am still recovering from believing lies surrounding the issue.  I have already confessed a struggle with being open to loving others, that my actions may be ones that are loving, but that my heart has lacked in affection.  There are surely several reasons for this.  One of the biggest is simply that I have believed that in order to love God as I should, I need to be very cautious, if not stingy with my affections toward others, for fear of idolatry.

I don't have anything new to say, apart from simply a new way been helping me to overcome this lie.  It is this: It is not a comment on God's worth if we love other things.  I fear that I have looked at the situation and thought, "Man, I need to love God, and others can be a hindrance, or even an idol, so I will withhold my love from them."  It's as if I am afraid that if I love others I am somehow taking away from God.  Yet, God is the one who tells me to love.  And hear this, it is a popular belief that "love is a decision."  No.  There is surely a decisive and devotional quality to love, but that is not the sum total of what love is, any more than I am a hand.  I have a hand, two actually, but that is only a part of me.  You will not understand me if you simply focus on my hands.

I think we want this to be simply because it takes the mystery out of love, and puts it into our own hands, and by golly aren't our hands the best???  Nope.  God's are, and He tells us to love.  In my studies of the word love, there are those qualities of decisiveness that push us through hard times, but there is no way to separate the mysterious and emotional side of love, that is just as big a part.  I have become fond of using the word affection.

I have prayed and begged God for a response, that He would show me what it means to love Him, that my heart was fading under this lie.  He has been faithful to answer.  I now see that the God chose to have us love Him, and that a part of that is through others, and thus you cannot fully love God without loving others, or indeed His creation.  It isn't that doing so lessens God, it is simply that He chose to do it that way.  We don't need to love other things because God isn't enough, He is more than enough.  We need to love others because that's what God wants us to do.

A similar analogy would be God's might.  he has infinite might, but willingly chooses when to use it.  He hasn't withheld throwing Satan into hell because He can't, He has chosen not to for His own purpose.  If we take the analogy to our own lives, we can see that we do the same.  I almost never exercise the full extent of my own strength.  That would be weird if I did, wouldn't it?  Constantly crushing coke cans when I tried to drink them, sending coke everywhere.  Ha! 


So, I now know it.  Loving others is one of the ways God has chosen for me to enjoy Him.  The freedom I now feel to fully enjoy His people and creation is immense, and it has made me soar to Him with thanksgiving.  So thankful.  

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