I've already mentioned what I learned at Southland earlier last year, about loving people at their worst because that's when they are farthest from God, and therefore need love the most.....to hopefully help reconcile them to God.
That lesson has been a great help in many relationships yet it still takes me a little while to remember that lesson. My first instinct is still to react with anger and judgement at people's mistakes or flaws. That is the human condition though, isn't it. I am aiming to love like God, but I am human, and God's love is above knowledge, above logic.
This human condition almost seems to be an involuntary reflex at times, but as Pavlov's research proves reflexes can be conditioned. But there was someone who knew about conditioning our reflexes long before Pavlov.....Jesus. This summer, at our Church Riverwood, they played a video of a great sermon from a church called Theater Church, who actually podcasts their sermons to several different locations. They had a series called Love U (funny enough), and I learned a lot in this lesson, you can listen to it here if you wish.
Jesus was a great observer of how we are good at acting like Godly people, but it is not as easy to REACT so righteously. But it is our reactions, our conditioned reflexes, that reveal more about our relationship with God.
Luke 6:27-36 is a great example of Jesus trying to recondition our love reflex. We go on the offense so easily when we are under 'attack', when someone steals from us, hits us, takes advantage of our wealth, but it isn't even just the 'big' things, that cause us to react badly because really, I haven't been stolen from or hit all that often. What about how we treat those who 'steal' our sense of peace, our personal time, our good mood. Or someone who hurts us with insults, gossip, injures our reputation, or emotions. Why are we not willing to give to everyone who asks, why only to those we like, or feel are deserving. Our reflex is to hurt back anyone who seems they are not for us, but against us.
The pastor in this video made a interesting observation, Jesus was practicing a sort of spiritual Aikido. Aikido is a form of martial art, performed by blending with the motion of the attacker and redirecting the force of the attack rather than opposing it head-on. He is trying to show us that when our conditional reaction to 'attacks' is to oppose them head-on we should instead redirect their attack with love. Jesus has perfect control of his reflexes and exercises a loving conditional reflex, with such mercy and grace. Jesus' gave love when it was least expected and least deserved. People caught in the act of horrible sins; the adultress woman about to be stoned, making eye contact with Peter instead of shunning him after he denied him, forgiving his tormentors as he was being tortured and crucified, he loved them all when they least deserved it and least expected it.
We convince ourselves that forgiving and loving people who hurt us will condone their poor choices, but Jesus obviously did not approve of the people crucifying him, yet he knew only a loving response would save them from themselves. His love is unfailing, it always remembers that people are more valuable than the life they choose for themselves, even a life apart from him. He is our groom and he loves us for better or worse. He also knows that when people are at their worst, they are at their most vulnerable and so we should love and bless people beyond their ability to reciprocate, after all, just look at what loving people at their most vulnerable, their most helpless, did to the people Jesus loved. He changed lives drastically.
So I looked inward, to see who I withold love from, who I pull away from, afraid I will condone their actions. There are the people I've worked with, who are ruthless, and I'm probably more afraid other people will think I'm approving of their actions. There are those who are just annoying, always needing attention, sympathy, approval, etc. and so it makes me want to give it to them even less. But the scariest realization was that I do that my husband. I am afraid to condone some of the things he does because I fear he will think it's ok to continue them, and so I nag a little, guilt a little, whine a little. That is not loving at all, and is something I purposefully avoided during my Honor Hubby Challenge, but has been tougher to carry out the rest of the time. I have made a bit of an improvement though, and I am seeing changes in him lately, but only because I've turned to God to show me how I can help him instead of thinking I can 'encourage' him to change my own way.
Who are you withholding love from because they don't always meet your approval?
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