I've been thinking a lot lately - which is never good - about several things. Redemption. How we don't really deserve redemption but its offered to us all. Love. Dreams. Who we are versus how we live.
God is really dealing with me about love these days. And no, it's not just because February ended and we came out of this cheesy, red and pink, Valentine saturated period. This has been going on for some time now. And I mean real love. The kind you have to squeeze out at 11 PM so you can hold your tongue. The kind that convicts you for referring to a friend as 'retard' when you're really upset at them. The kind that refuses to hold a grasp on the grudge that you really, really are not ready to let go yet.
I heard Rick say recently that we try to communicate love with a message of hate. WOW! That could not be further from the truth! It really kicked my butt. I thought about how in my own life there are times that I miss-communicate how I really feel towards someone or how my behaviour towards them does not accurately reflect the esteem in which I hold them. It's not that I myself misuse hate as a jacked-up means of attempting to communicate love; but that the absence of love, or rather the void-ness of it, from my words or actions creates a schism. And God never intended for there to be schisms separating us from anything but hell.
My big spiritual gift is mercy and I've never felt that I had a problem with not being able to love people. I forgive very easily, try very hard to 'not rock the boat' and frequently find myself allowing someone to walk on me. These are the flaws, or weaknesses, that mercy people are known for. We don't like confrontation and we have been know to enable people in issues rather than confront them.
But that's not love. Those are personality traits. They are responses to other's behaviour. Love is what kicks in when the other person is unlovable. We all know the 'Love Chapter' in 1 Corinthians (Ch. 13). It's become quite cliche' to us. But in the loss of its true meaning we have also lost the truest definition of love.
Sometime ago, I went through some things with a friend who made me very angry. Because this person was friend, it was a very emotionally complicated situation. I had feelings of hate, revenge, bitterness - all the wonderful things you feel when someone has wronged you. I wanted to make this person feel as hurt, angry and as bad as they had made me feel. But I struggled to reconcile those feelings with the way that I genuinely felt towards them, which was amicably.
So, one day my 'scripture of the day' application threw at me a verse from the "Love Chapter". What it told me is that real love believes the best about someone even when the circumstances suggest otherwise, it gives them the benefit of the doubt. Real love doesn't hold against someone what they have done to hurt, offend or wrong you. Real love doesn't judge someone by their mistakes, flaws or weaknesses, but cherishes their best, most shinning moments. Real love doesn't react to the sins that others commit against you, but responds with true understanding, patience and wisdom. Real love doesn't seek or find joy in seeing someone suffer in retribution for their transgressions against us.
Paul wrote that "love bears all things". He didn't imply that it was easy or enjoyable, he just that it would endure through everything. As 1 Peter 4:8 says, "love covers over a multitude of sins". Just as the love of God, through Jesus, covers our sins, the love that we bear toward others should cover over theirs.
And so I've learned over the past few months that regardless how strong my mercy gift my be, I have a lot to learn about love. It presents a challenge to me, as it does to all of us simply because true love does not come easily to human nature. The challenge has caused me to seek out more and more God's direction, His will; to be more spirit lead and simply to strive to live out life in a more Christ-like way.
I found a quote recently by author Truman Capote that I thought summed up the idea eloquently: "Love, having no geography, knows no boundaries."
So, that's how I'm going to try to live - without boundaries.