Love, love, love

I've been thinking a lot about love today. But actually, moreso, about how I so often make a mockery of it. Don't get me wrong, I love people. A lot of people. And on a great day, all people. Even the mean ones. But more often than not, I love the ones who love me back. I love the ones most like myself. I love the ones who make my life more pleasant. Easier. And at some point in my life, not too long ago, I found myself loving strangers more than the people in my own life simply because it was easier. This can't be good. And prior to that, I took solace in asking God to love the difficult people for me until I could somehow manage to do so myself. That definitely wasn't good. So today I came to the painful realization (not for the first time in my life)that I am one of the difficult people. Someone, somewhere, perhaps the man sitting in my very living room as I type this, finds me hard to love. And it isn't because he doesn't want to love me, or that I am purposely finding ways to be unlovable, but simply because it isn't easy to do, this love thing.

And as I thought more and more about how hard it is to love and let ourselves be loved, I came to the conclusion (for about the hundredth time in my life, but this time in an "Ah-ha!" kind of way) that maybe if I stopped projecting my earthly relationships on to my supernatural relationship with God, and started projecting God's love for me on to people, including myself, then maybe, just maybe, I could begin to get this right more often than I get it wrong. And this is something I need to get right. This thought reminded me of something in Donald Miller's book Searching for God Knows What. In talking about God as the One who "redeems our identity for us, giving us His righteousness," he says:

"Imagine how much a man's life would be changed if he trusted that he was loved by God? He could interact with the poor and not show partiality, he could love his wife easily and not expect her to redeem him, he would slow to anger because redemption was no longer at stake, he could be wise and giving with his money because money no longer represented points, he could give up on formulaic religion, knowing that checking stuff off a spiritual to-do list was a worthless pursuit, he would have confidence and the ability to laugh at himself, and he could love people without expecting anything in return. It would be quite beautiful, really."

I don't know about you, but I could do without all of this pressure I put on myself. You know, the kind of stuff that makes me act in the ways of the difficult people. The stuff that blinds me to hurts and injustices. The stuff that makes me strive so crazily that I can't find grace where it is most evident. The stuff that makes me think more stuff will make me more lovable. The stuff that makes me think anyone could deserve any more or less love than anyone else. The stuff that makes me no more than just a clanging cymbal.

So today I decided I'm going to start loving people because I understand what it means to be loved. And I'm not talking about earthly, conditional love. The kind that has to be qualified with words like "despite" or "even though" or "if". I'm going to love with the kind of love that has only one qualification: redeemed.