Thursday swap – loving people
lynse said i could write a blurb about myself because i got my post to her super late. sorry, girl. um. so…my name is tam. i write over at inProgress. i live in southern oregon and am married to an amazing man who is a fantabulous daddy and smashing hubs. i have a 15 yr old daughter and 12 yr old son. and a dog. that you can have. like, for free. serious.
moving on…
lynse asked yesterday why is it so hard to simply love Gods Church. His people.
that is a real good question. our church sign reads…
Table Rock Fellowship – Love God. Love People.
pure and simple. i do know that when you love people, you love God. i get that. but do we really love people? or do we pretend? do we say all the right things and act appropriately in the right places at the right time? in other words, can we truly love people if we’re not being authentic?
i think that is why it is so hard to love people. not all people. obviously, there are those that are easy to love…family, best friends. but the reaching out part, the part where we are to go and rub shoulders with the Church. hold on now – that might be uncomfy. but why? i think its because we’re afraid to be ourselves. and that could be for many reasons. maybe we’re people pleasers and are afraid of rejection. maybe we’re worried that if someone knew who we really were they would shun us. bottom line…we’re making life too much about ourselves and not enough about others. i really dont see it any other way. and im speaking to myself here more than anyone else.
so, what to do. get real with ourselves? come face to face with who we really are and lay it before God? perhaps, reconciling yourself with your past, forgiving yourself is in order?
i dont know. im really just throwing things out there. am i totally off? do you have any other thoughts here?
well written tam….this is tough…I think we can really love people….what I really have a hard time with is loving those people who let their actions make it tough to love them. How do you deal with that?
I have a tendency to just cut the strings, walk away and move on in my life. I would like to reach a point where I first "try" to reconcile before cashing in.
joseph, i have that exact same tendency. its just easier, i guess. i dont do drama. i stay away from it at all costs…even though i know that i have got to be a very tough person to love sometimes too, yet, God still chooses to stick it out with me. when i choose to remember that – it cause my reaction to those people to be a lot different. i just wished id remember it more often ;-/
I too have that tendency. It is so much easier to just walk away. But in a situation i have had to deal with recently i am learning that sticking it out tends to have more "return" and not that it is about "felling good about what you have done" but if you stick it out your relationship with that person is so much more….and i have had so many people who have stuck it out with me that i cant imagine not trying to stick it out with others.
1 John 4 is often referred too as the love Chapter, and define how we are to love and how that love is measured.
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 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. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for[c] our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
"this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us"
thats the point i was making above to joseph. if i can keep that in the forefront of my mind…i really wouldnt have any trouble at all loving ALL people. and, again, it goes back to selfishness.
dang.
so so true. it does come back to selfishness. But i think some of the "sticking it out and loving people" can be a selfish act. I know sometimes i get involved in situations that i dont really have the grace for, but selfishly i kind of want to play God. It isnt healthy, but i think choosing to love and stick it out if you dont have the grace for it can be as damaging as just leaving if you need to stay. Does that make any sense or just in my head? ;)
ooooo, THAT is a great point. dang, lynse. yah….you are absolutely right!
I love that everything I wanted to say has been said – it shows a heart for united fellowship.
And, we have the same thing on our site…Love God, Love People…but with Love Life added on to the end. This always creates a great discussion point, since we're not loving our own lives, but the Giver of Life. (and now I'll be singing that song all night…"You are good, always, always – ba ba bada ba, ba bada ba"…
That is such a good point. why wouldnt we love our lives if we love the giver of life? man….thats a really really strong point! Thanks for that!