The first few weeks of April have been experience after experience of learning how to love others. Sometimes, I find myself failing miserably. Yet, there is this soft small voice saying, it is impossible to love on my own effort. I think I am realizing why Jesus gave the first command to love God with my whole heart, and then to love others as myself. It is virtually impossible for me to love others without loving God first. Now, sure, it's easy for me to love Chris, my Dad, my brother, my in-laws, and my closest friends. Admittedly, I don't have to be too close to Jesus to do that. I can get by sometimes just because I have affinity towards them. However, its the people that I find difficult to love, when the rubber hits the road. I will make faces, ignore them, and do some pretty darn right mean things to them. I can always tell how close I am to Jesus in moments when I am faced with a difficult person in a difficult circumstance. Praise God that he cares about the people that I do not! It is when I see God's heart towards them and His heart towards my sinfulness and selfishness that love can step in in spite of me.
Recently, my lack of love for God and other people, lead me to a place of self-pity and wallowing. A very terrible place to be. I would try to pray, but there would be this reverb affect. It was like when a bird flies into a window thinking there is a clear picture of its destination only to suffer the injury of not seeing clearly. Time after time, I would feel sad leaving prayer. I knew that a heart change was in order. I was spending too much time concerned about my own self worth in the world to really care about my state of relationship with God and other people. It was reeking havoc on my prayer life. Yet, because God is gracious and merciful, today I feel that that cycle is broken.
In church, we talked about God's plan for people to love one another in His church. My heart broke to think that I have been missing out on God's plan for my life and the lives of the people in His church. I live so self-focused that I forget to give a shoulder to my fellow brothers and sisters to cry on, or rejoice with them for getting a great grade in a class, or taking the time to listen to their heartbreak. I have felt like I was hitting a wall in prayer because I was only praying for myself. Jesus decided to break off all the cement in my heart. I feel like he set me free to care for the people that he has so graciously put in my life.
It is not in my power to be able to care and love for people. It is Jesus' work in my heart that helps me to do so. Also, when I confessed, hey God I am not nice, kind, considerate, or any of those flattering terms used to describe a saint, it is then that he brought me into the realization of His holiness and His greatness and my lack there of. I'm so thankful that I believe in a God that is willing to scoop me out of my mess and restore me into right relationship with Him and with those I get to share this life with.
