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. 

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.

Luv, luv, luv. Luv is all you need

The Beatles expressed the core need of humans for love. They defined a very different and unsatisfying kind of love than what the Bible says we long for. Imagine...

• being loved by someone who knows you, inside and out. And still loves you completely.
• sharing a deep faith that lets you pray and trust together.
• being able to rely on someone in every circumstance and during any temptation.
• knowing your lover consistently loves you, whether you are together or apart.
• loving someone enough to commit to them in sickness or health, in wealth or poverty, from youth to old age, without reservation.
• being able to express love without ever hurting the other person.
• showing love in the way the person needs to experience love, and having them perfectly demonstrate their love the way you prefer.
• showing love by being a good person, moral in values and high standards beyond sexual purity.
• trying to make each other proud by doing your best, no matter how hard the effort.

God's love is just like that. However, the pop band wasn't talking about that kind of commitment. They promoted the "free love" of the 60s and 70s. You could drift from affair to affair without hurting anyone, including yourself, they said.

Once in a while, I read "The Vibrant Woman," a secular blog for women 50 and older. Women write about planning their divorces, secreting away funds, and preparing to leave their partner while keeping the good life. They crow about clandestine trysts with high-school or college sweethearts––how to have "fun" while keeping the truth from their spouses or partners. Women also talk about fading looks, fears of being abandoned as they age, and having dozens of partners without every finding their "Prince Charming." They've lived in commitment-free "love" and tout it as their right.

Their words croak of unhappiness, rather than sing of fulfillment. Many speak of how they've been bruised, beaten by life. Most no longer recognize or admit the satisfaction of being true to one person for a lifetime.

I've certainly not been an ideal wife. Newly married, both of us demonstrated a lack of maturity and care for each other. But it got better as the years went by. We learned a lot.

After I'd had our fourth and last baby, I went for a physical. The doc asked if I was monogamous. I was very surprised by the question.

"Yes, but why do you ask?" I countered.

"I can tell in your body. Good for you. Many partners affect the physical body. I don't see any of the disease and sickness that women pick up, sleeping around. You wouldn't believe how obvious that is, when we do physical exams. And women who have been molested and mistreated flinch and exhibit fear when we have to touch them."

Hmmm. You learn something every visit, I guess. I'd never thought of monogamy as a protection for me physically. Yes, my husband and I committed to be faithful to each other during a time when surrounding culture said that was uncool, that it was silly to save yourself for marriage. (Mind you, our church culture forbade sex before exchanging wedding rings. And our parents would have killed us, figuratively speaking.)

Over 34 years ago, we agreed that trust and love should be ongoing actions, not just feelings. It's been hard slogging at times, but the pay-off is worth it. Prince Charming lives at our house, and he's taking good care of our daughter as she recovers from surgery and I write school papers. Lucky me. (Oh wait, doesn't luck mean no work?)

Who shows you this kind of love, and whom do you love with all your heart?

Read more:

*Psalm 11; Genesis 19:1-29; Matthew 7:1-12

*Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all. 1 Chronicles 29:11

*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 

*Speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ. Ephesians 4:15

Moravian Prayer: Lord, you are high and lifted up. Your glory fills our lives. We pray the experiences of this day will deepen our faith in you. Help us to keep our lives centered on you. Amen.