A thing that I struggle with is the tension between the temporary and the eternal, between things fleeting and things staying. And so often I don’t realize that even the things fleeting in my life have eternal consequences. There is a Love that seals the two seemingly opposite poles.
In my life, I sense this tension most in my relationships. If you worked at Pine Cove with me this summer, you know how much of an asshole I can be in friendships and getting to know you. Here is the problem: I don’t want to get close to someone just to drift away from them a few months after. It hurts. It hurts my heart. What I don’t realize is that, as believers, we are called to love no matter what. (Recently I was thinking about various convictions I had, like political convictions, or moral convictions, or whatever, and it occurred to me that sometimes one must choose between a conviction and loving a person, and the more I dwell on that the more I see that love is our primary conviction and should not be ousted by anything—this is not to say, however, that we as Christians are to be pushovers; look at Christ! He ran into the temple with a whip and drove people out [John 2:15]; He cursed at people [Luke 11:19-40]; Jesus wasn’t a pushover. We have to balance, learn to balance, love and passion; it’s a tricky line we Christians walk.) Back to the point—love love love. I missed that at Pine Cove to a great degree. I thought about myself first and love second. If you worked with me at Pine Cove, I’m sorry. I probably didn’t love you as I should have. I was selfish (still am). I was in the wrong.
In that, you can pray for me. It’s all love and carpe diem.
The solution is Love and God is love (1st John 4:8) and Jesus is God so the solution is God/Jesus/Love. Love is our calling.
Love love love love love.
This is a line from a Rachael Yamagata song that says something good about love, and—in part—she is talking about romantic love, but I think this line speaks true of love in general and definitely would have helped me:
“So for those of you falling in love . . . throw yourselves in the midst of the danger, but keep one eye open at night.”
Love!
1 comment:
Here is an excerpt from a book I have been reading:
"I discovered that Jesus Christ is concretely present to us in our relational lives, in our person-to-person encounters, in the I and you. Thus there is no "third thing," no "end" to which the relationship should lead. Bonhoeffer's theology alerted me to the possibility that the relationship is the "end." It is the place where Christ is present, the place where the adolescent (and I, for that matter) encounter Christ.
Ministry, then, is not about "using" relationships to get individuals to accept a "third thing," whether that be conservative politics, moral behaviors or even the gospel message. Rather, ministry is about connection, one to another, about sharing in suffering and joy, about persons meting persons with no pretense or secret motives. It is about shared life, confessing Christ not outside the relationship but within it. This, I learned, was living the gospel."
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