Love

Have you ever tried to love someone?  I'm not talking about the endeavor that leads to your own satisfaction, you know, loving someone to be loved in return.  I mean loving someone because you just love them.  It does not matter what they may say or do or express to you; you will still love them.  We don't have many examples of this kind of love around us, unfortunately.  It would be kind of awesome to have love like this going off all around us.  I do see it though.  It does happen.

When a mother cares for a sick child and finds whatever remedy she can find to ease that child's distress, no matter the cost, no matter the time required, no matter the thoughts of others, that is close to this kind of love.  I see the moms cradling their sick ones oblivious to the possibility that their sick one could make them sick and I see this kind of love.  Love like this cares more about the other than the one loving.  Love like this sacrifices the lover for the benefit of the beloved.

A mother who at all hours works her hands to the bone, as they say, giving her energy, her time, her hopes and dreams for the little ones sleeping in the next room, demonstrates the possibility that there is a love like this.  She would deny herself for the well being of her children.  She would drag herself to bed, totally exhausted from her labors of love, all for the vision of her little ones safe, warm, happy and eventually successful.  Love like this denies self for the other.

And what about the "stupid" love of brother for brother and sister for sister, who one minute would be fighting between themselves and the next, having someone come between them to hurt one of them, join forces against the common enemy.  It doesn't have to be a physical assault.  It could be verbal, written and even a look that is out of place and brothers and sisters join forces in this kind of love.  This is one reason political solutions to many international conflicts fail.  They do not understand the connections of peoples.  The hatreds shared cease in the moment that "brothers" are attacked from outside of the family (no matter how distant that family has grown).  They would give themselves to the task of protecting the other against any perceived adversary.

Jesus said in John 15:13, "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends."  He wasn't just trying to wow the crowd.  He was trying to state a principle that transcends most life experience.  Real love, eternal love, ultimate love is best seen in the art, skill and finery of the lover casting all cares aside for the benefit of the beloved.

We talk about it, but we hesitate, often, to express it.  We know what it looks like, but we fear letting it become a part of who we are for the cost we know it implies.  We know how it feels to be the object of something close to this kind of love.  We know the warmth of the right embrace in the loneliest of times.  We know the presence of family, even in the midst of disagreement, in the coldest of life experience.  We know what it means to be loved when we don't deserve it.

On this Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, may the love of Christ which overcomes all the pettiness of the world, all the short sightedness of the human frame, all the selfishness and egocentric demands of every tongue, nation and race overcome us.  Like a storm raging against the coast, may His love devastate our conceited impudence before the most powerful force in the world.  Love.

Satisfaction

How blessed is the one whom 
Thou dost choose, and bring near to Thee,
To dwell in Thy courts.
We will be satisfied with the
Goodness of Thy house,
Thy holy temple.
Psalm 65:4

Oh, to be satisfied!  To be filled, content, to be at peace!

We strive for so much in this world, trying to fill the holes that we find in our lives.  Trying to cram whatever we feel will fit into the spaces of need that we have.  How we struggle to fill the emptiness we carry around.  We endeavor to stuff the void within of desired relationships, acceptance, love, success, attainment, friendship and even existence.  We cry out "Hey, I am here, I exist, I have worth, I mean something."  We cast out endeavoring to snag a piece of ANYTHING, the edge of the world's fabric, to complete that which only God can complete, which only God can fulfill, which only God can "satisfy."  We say that because we are not happy, even under God's most delicate and loving hand, that we must seek out that happiness elsewhere.

Lord satisfy our longing hearts, fill our emptiness and give us real satisfaction in Your peace.  Help us be satisfied with the goodness of Your presence.

Blessing God

Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears our burden, the God who is our salvation.  Psalm 68:19

How does God become blessed?  Can He who created all things, the one who is all powerful, all knowing, the every where God be blessed?  Evidently He can be blessed.  I suppose the analogy that illustrates this might be that of an inventor (or creator) who upon seeing his invention do what it was designed to do draws satisfaction from it.  It pleases the inventor to see it work like he planned for it to work.  Perhaps God is blessed with His creation when He sees it operate like He intended it to operate.  Ultimately, I suppose, He is pleased, for His will is always done.

I also see in this one little verse, that the Lord bears our burden.  He cares for the weight of this world on our shoulders as it would want to crush us, to defeat us, and He says "Give me that heavy load."  In the most awesome way, He took it all upon Himself at the place of the skull (Golgotha), where Jesus, our Lord, effectively became our Savior, receiving upon His most noble shoulders the filth and decadence of this world, our sin, and dealt with it.

Yet it doesn't just end there.  I skipped a word.  "Daily."  Our great, awesome and loving God daily takes our burden for He cares for us at all times.  I care for my family, wife, kids, grandkids, but at times I grow weary of the exercise; but our great God never does.  He never grows weary or faint!

So, as an extension, our salvation is in good hands, it is secure in the nature of our God, and gladly, not in ours.  He is our salvation.  It is not a thing to possess like a key chain or a wallet full of cash with which we cry out, "Mine, mine, mine."  Rather it is a relationship with the Creator God who cares for His creation.  One in which we assuredly have an important part, but not in locking it away, rather, in living it out.

Help us, Lord God to live our relationship of salvation with You in light of Your great care for us and blessing You in the process.