The Truth of Love

There are times in our lives where we walk into situations that we know are going to be rough, but we didn't know that they were going to be this rough. The truth is that when we walk into those situations it is quite easy to have a positive attitude at first. However, as it goes on and our lives get harder, positive attitudes start to disappear. Positivity turns into apathy and annoyance. Hope disappears and escape plans are starting to be mapped out.

I have found myself in this place of apathy lately when it comes to a specific life scenario. God has brought someone into my life that isn't the easiest to love because of a myriad of reasons. As God is showing me what it looks like to love her, the devil is showing me why I shouldn't. My life is a real life tug of war between God and the devil and to be honest...the devil is winning. It's much easier to not love or to "surface love" a human being when times are rocky and that is what I am being pulled more towards.

However, as I read through the Gospels and even witness other human beings in my life, I see the truth of love revealed. First of all, God doesn't use clean people for his purpose. He uses those who are messed up and who have a past. The reason I acknowledge this is because when it comes to loving another human being it so easy for me to compare my life to theirs. The life they live may not be as clean as mine and I may mess up, but at least I don't mess up that much. This is the point where the humbling hand of God knocks me upside the head. Who am I to look at another human's life and think that God can do nothing with them? Who am I to look at their life and think that he is not doing anything with them right now? It's easy to have a skewed view of God's plan when we are stuck in our own minds of comparison. We must remember that we are all on the same scale and that nothing we do is bigger or lesser than that of other humans.

It is easy to lose hope in people when we see them continually make wrong decisions. We all continue to make wrong decisions. I continue to the same mistakes every single day even when those who love me tell me that I am in the wrong. Not only do the humans in my life tell me, but the Holy Spirit continually convicts me on my decisions. The truth is that even though I continue to mess up, I have a God who continues to love me and push me through that. Hope is not lost in my case and I should not lose hope in those "difficult" people in my life. If we have no hope in those around us that we care and love for, who will? And even more so, why should they have hope in themselves if no one else does? Hope is a simple thing to instill in another human beings life and to be real it doesn't always look like it's there at first, but it is. Hope is one of those things that takes a little bit of time to grow inside of a person because there is a great chance that it has never existed previously.

Love isn't an easy action all of the time nor is it meant to be easy. Love is continually challenging to the person extending and receiving. The truth is that until we allow ourselves to be humbled and to move past our own selfishness, we will never understand love. We have to look at the people (even the difficult one) who surround us and love them with a much deeper love. We cannot love through a human love, but only through the love of Christ. We all have our stories and we all have hit a sort of rock bottom, but we are continually loved. If we are continually loved, why should we not extend the favor? People will never change if we don't allow them to change. We only continue to chain them down with our lack in faith in them. With that being said, here's to a new challenge of true love...even in the hardest times.