Lent Day 2: "I choose you"

It's great to be chosen. Remember those awful ordeals in elementary school, where the strongest kids were chosen for sports teams and the rest of us got picked "middle and end" of the draw?

Over 36 years ago, my good friend and I chose each other. We got engaged. My mom and I planned the wedding and sent invitations to friends and acquaintances.

Over 35 years ago, W (that friend) and I got married. We agreed our marriage would be "for better and worse, in sickness and in health, for richer and poorer." I walked down the aisle thinking, "This is the person I'll grow old with. I bet I'll still like him when we are 60." (Mind you, I also thought, "Thank God, I don't have to date anymore." A strange sentiment for a bride, perhaps?)

W and I have had romantic years and fight-it-out years. Kid years when we hardly saw each other: I nearly drowned in childcare and homeschooling while W worked overtime at church. We spent years praying and puzzling about how to guide our interesting and exasperating teens. There were years of sickness and health for our daughter when we had barely enough energy to get up in the morning. Two sons married. One child moved out of town. We went back to school to learn new things. We traveled to foreign lands to teach. And we're still together.

Even more enduring (and endearing) is the model of love we learned as part of God's family. God chose us and committed to us before we loved him or knew him. He called us to Himself, inclined us to listen and respond, and provided reconciliation between us through Jesus Christ.

On this second day of Lent, I'm grateful for many experiences of loving and being loved. God has taught us that love is meant for giving and receiving. W and I are blessed with good parents and siblings. We love our children. We have many friends to hold dear.

Underneath the experiences and the years are the Everlasting Arms, sustaining, caring, and enriching every interaction. I'm so glad to be God's beloved this Valentine's Day. How about you?

Oh ... and of course I'm grateful for Prince Charming, too! Love you, hon.

Read more:
*I am the Lord your God, who teaches you for your own good, who leads you in the way you should go. Isaiah 48:17

*Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.  So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. Matthew 10:29-31 NIV

*Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 1 John 4:7-11 NIV


Moravian Prayer: Instructor of the universe, we wait with open and longing hearts for you to teach us the ways in which we should live in a right relationship with all you have created. Amen. 

Where love looks

It's becoming pretty clear from my Monvee evaluations that ideas, creativity, and life-in-motion are some of my core values. So how does an "idea-person, activator, or strategic thinker" (Strengthfinder 2.0) show love for others? My focus naturally falls to tasks and speech, to helping people move from where they are into exploration of their potential and use of their gifts. I'm thinking about where my love looks, where it rests its gaze, and what it envisions for the ones I love.

I love this from Real Simple's Daily Thought:

Certainly there are times and places for "gazing at each other" or taking a second and third look.

• When being introduced, we may look closely several times, evaluating if this person is someone who will become a friend or coworker.
• At the beginning of a romance, you want to see the other person and have them look back at you. 
• At special occasions, we may focus on the memories etched in a loved one's face.

The true love that God goes further. It examines the trajectory of a life, falls alongside to boost and support, and walks at the beloved's side. Through thick and thin. Through joys and sorrows. Through failure and success.

Guests swimming at a luxury hotel in Jakarta while
the rest of the city endures flooding (BBC)

Love doesn't isolate itself from reality. It doesn't ignore the needs around us (see photo right).

Let's find the direction of God's love and people's needs. I can probably come up with some ideas to make that kind of true love come alive today. How about you?

Read more:

*May he give us the desire to do his will in everything and to obey all the commands, decrees, and regulations that he gave our ancestors. 1 Kings 8:58 NLT

*Your way, O God, is holy. Psalm 77:13

*O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! Romans 11:33

Moravian Prayer: Holy Lord and God, you are the way the truth and the life. Fill us with your Holy Spirit; teach us your wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. Move self out of the way and direct our paths. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Love without fear

(Jesus said, ) But the third servant brought back only the original amount of money and said, "Master, I hid your money and kept it safe. I was afraid because you are a hard man to deal with, taking what isn't yours and harvesting crops you didn't plant."

"You wicked servant!" the king roared. "Your own words condemn you." Luke 19:20–22

What’s wrong with bringing back an original investment? It’s better than risking all and losing, isn’t it? Re-reading the verses above, I wonder if unearned gains are the reason the king reacts. Perhaps it’s not as much about keeping what we have, as hoarding out of fear. Perhaps it’s not doing our best because of our trepidation of failure … or success.

I’ve been thinking about what life would be like if we loved without fear or faltering. Most of us, in loving and living, have a certain amount of anxiety or hesitation about risking all in the act of giving ourselves to others.

But what if we threw ourselves into life with reckless love, regardless of the perils? What if we were willing to put everything on the line – our reputations, our dignity, our sense of entitlement to reciprocal love – to embrace others and our opportunities with all our personalities and character?

From some, that would look extravagant and extroverted, a splash of kindness in every direction. It’s scary for those who are used to being pushed away from their attempts to do things for others to keep an outgoing flow of love. Especially when we’re told over and over again, “No thanks! Keep away!” “I don’t want your attention!” or “I’ve got life under control, back off!” More devastating still, hearing: “Who do you think you are? You’re not good enough to contribute to me/ this project/ this ministry (etc.)”

Others would quietly serve, wholeheartedly seeing to the good of those around us. Sometimes a gentle spirit is crushed by not being noticed, by having attention drawn to good deeds, or hearing a scathing remark about the inadequacy of such actions. Having someone take the credit while belittling us for loving acts or sacrificial commitments can wither the heart, too.

It might also be shocking to receive such unfeigned grace and good deeds. After all, aren’t we sometimes suspicious of those who lavish good works around them? Don’t we fear that someone who does us a favor may want something from us? Something we might not be willing to return to them?

With all the talk of “love banks” where good actions or “deposits” accumulate to balance “withdrawals” of human need or unkind actions, it’s hard not to start measuring what we are owed and what we owe others. Sometimes, starting from a core distrust, such measurements begin to build a relationship. In truth, we’re so far in debt as far as God is concerned, that the accounting of rights and wrongs smacks of humanism, not godliness.

Scripture says we owe an un-repayable debt of love – that we have become debtors to Christ. In fact, we are His slaves, entirely purchased at Calvary through a bloody ransom. Therefore, if our Master asks us to love other, we don’t have permission or power to refuse – if we want to stay in right relationship with Him. (“By this everyone will know you are my disciples, that you have love one for another,” Jesus said bluntly.)

We probably try to like and love most people. However, I’m thinking beyond the human ability to do no harm and to be nice to those who are our friends and family.

LOVE WITHOUT FEAR. What would a day of that look like to those around me? To those around you? How would such courage feel?

Read more:

*Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him. Lamentations 3:22-25 NIV 

*I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation. Habakkuk 3:18

*Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them?” Mark 2:19 (NIV)

Moravian Prayer: Creator and Sustainer, you have provided such bounty for us, your children. When we feel a lack of earthly things, help us to trust in you to provide for our needs, on earth and in heaven. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Lent Day 38: Thankful for love

Love is a driver. The old song says we do things like "walking in the rain and the snow when there's nowhere to go..."

When young men court women, they charm their girlfriends with homemade baking or meals, go shopping, sit for long hours chatting, and restrict their time for online games. I warned my prospective daughters-in-law that such attention would change after marriage. (I like them too much to want them to be surprised by the cycle of courtship.) Love continues to grow but the undivided male focus surely swerves back to a new normal.

Jesus' love got stronger and more demonstrative as he approached the end of his life and the redemption of his Bride. He sat down with friends to talk (Bethany), took time to explain miracles (the fig tree), and finally––in his most awful and wonderful expression of love––he died for us.

Please listen to my favorite song about the amazing scandal of God's mysterious Love. Love, all loves excelling, remains a model for us in marriage, family, and other relationships. (Click here.)

Read more:

*In your great mercies you did not make an end of your people or forsake them. Nehemiah 9:31

*As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command." John 15:9-14 NIV

*The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." 1 Corinthians 11:23-25

*When Jesus saw his mother standing there beside the disciple he loved, he said to her, "Dear woman, here is your son." And he said to this disciple, "Here is your mother." And from then on this disciple took her into his home. Jesus knew that his mission was now finished. John 19:26–28

Moravian Prayer: Father, forgive us for our sins of ignorance and restore our hope as we remember the suffering, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his name we pray. Amen.

Loving like... WHAT?

I read two scripture passages today that tilted my world. I admit that I've struggled all my life to love people as warmly as I'd like to. Seems when the cuddle-bug made its rounds, it forgot to bite me. It's not that I dislike people. There are just lots of times when this introvert feels like I can "take" or "leave" them. (Hardly imitating the biblical model of Jesus!)

"'Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?' 

Jesus replied, '"You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind."' This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: "Love your neighbor as yourself." The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.'" (Matthew 22:36–40)

"Wait a minute," I think to myself. "It is as important to love people as it is to love God?" Yikes.

Meeting with his disciples shortly before his death, Jesus gave strict orders: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35 NIV

How on earth can one love others as deeply and sincerely as Jesus loves us? The secret must lie in our utter abandonment to God's love. Knowing how precious we are in his eyes, that each person is made in God's image (Genesis 9:6), gives each human value beyond comprehension. 

It's easy to spend time on something that we think is valuable. People take hours to gaze at museum exhibits, nurture hobbies, and admire jewels, fine art, and collector's items.

How much more should we esteem those with infinite value, who have been purchased with the blood of a Lamb without spot or blemish?