Friday, February 13, 2004
VALENTINE’S DAY -- LOVE DAY – FEBRUARY 14th – More Thoughts
(If you haven’t read the previous Post from yesterday, 2/12/04, please do so before reading this Post.)
In my last Post I ended by saying that love means you’ll be involved with another’s life. And that means risk.
Biblically we must be involved, somewhat at least, in others’ lives. A Christian who loves as God loves cannot subscribe to the philosophy of the world which seems to be, “Live and let live!” That is a major problem with the Libertarian philosophy. There is much about the Libertarian position with which I agree wholeheartedly. But one of the major premises of Libertarianism is, “If it doesn’t affect me, I don’t care what anyone else does.” (That’s over-simplified, but I don’t have time for a detailed discussion here.)
In the first place, an awful lot of what “everyone else does” affects me a lot. Additionally, the Biblical principle is that, “I am my brother’s keeper!” contrary to what Cain said in the Old Testament. (Genesis 4:9) But I tend to digress. I didn’t intend this to be a Post about political philosophies!
My point is that to love as God loves involves risk. And God didn’t take a “hands off” policy toward us. He has been involved in our lives from before the beginning of time. And I am thankful for that.
Also, as I study Biblical love, it seems that besides involving risk, love is VULNERABLE. To me that means, “liable to be hurt”. You could mount a substantial argument that is like being at risk. I grant it is similar--with some shades of difference.
Loving is a 2-way street. When we “interfere” we become involved. Then we become totally vulnerable, unprotected.
Remember my illustration in the previous Post – about the child and the car? In seeking to save the child you become vulnerable to the car wheels rolling over you and crushing you. Also, you become vulnerable to being accused of trying to push the child into the car—especially if it were a child whom you were known not to like!
But often the decision to become involved and to become vulnerable has to be made ahead of the time of your actual involvement. As with the example of saving the child from the speeding car, when that situation occurs it is a split-second decision to react or not. There often isn’t time to make a decision whether or not to be involved in another’s life when the moment is upon you. That decision must have been made prior to that circumstance.
So the question we all have to ask ourselves is “Do I WANT to love as God loves? Do I WANT to love at a deep enough level to be willing to risk being hurt?” Am I willing to risk it even if I don’t know, or don’t like, the person—or the class of people, the race of people, the group of people, or whatever.
And I’m not talking about just being hurt physically. When we love like God loves, we become vulnerable to more than physical hurt. We become vulnerable to rejection, loneliness, being misunderstood and having our motives misinterpreted. And those hurts are far more devastating many times than physical wounds. Physical wounds usually heal with time and treatment. This other kinds of hurts often never heal.
So we live “provisionally”. We hold back for fear of getting hurt. We think, and sometimes say, ”I will help IF it doesn’t hurt me, or take too much time or cost me too much”, or whatever.
Yet the more we try to protect ourselves from being hurt often the more we get hurt. It is usually those who are most afraid of falling, the most afraid of being in an accident who end up having the accidents!
God was so vulnerable. Read John 3:16. Or 1 John 3:16 and 1 John 4:7-12. God was so involved, so vulnerable that He watched helplessly as Jesus, His only Son, was made fun of because of His supposed illegitimate birth. God witnessed as Jesus was misunderstood, mocked, beaten, tortured, forsaken, suffered and died a cruel death on a Roman Cross.
And God allowed His Son to become so involved with us that He also was totally vulnerable. All of this was a great demonstration of great love.
*Sheesh*
Love is not always a warm fuzzy feeling. It is involvement and being vulnerable. Love is having the courage to do the loving thing for a person, regardless of what that person, or others, may think. Sometimes it is doing the right thing for another person regardless of the consequences.
Loving God and His Son, Jesus; loving people – enough to become involved and vulnerable. That’s what being a husband/wife; a parent; a Christian friend is all about.
HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!
Jim
posted by jim 1:55 PM 0 comments
Comments:
Post a Comment
