God’s love has the power to heal and transform the world. But it starts with us and the way we relate to one another.
How has God’s love taught you to love better? We’d love to know in the comments below!
God chooses to experience reality embodied, taking on form in and through creation. In other words, the Creator of the universe resides within the expanse that is life.
Your body, your relationships, your work, your play. The Divine, which is extravagant, effortlessly unfurling love, is living what it’s like to be you. God chooses you, us, all of creation to give form to Being and to Loving.
Choosing to Live Alongside
So, is it possible that we could love the way God does? To do so, we must choose to live with and alongside others. We listen, learning what it’s like to be another in the same way the Divine does with us each day. How does another part of creation move and find their being in the universe?
Perhaps this year a relationship needs some extra care. Maybe there’s an area of life that poses an opportunity for the cultivation of compassion.
Is there a part of your community that calls for attention? Can the kids you serve get involved in meeting a need with love? Is there a way that your ministry can be giving courageously to those with less power? Maybe your family is craving love, calling you home for a few more hours.
How does Love respond to these invitations? How might you inspire others to live with open arms? What could this do to, and for, your church, family, city? And what might this kind of loving presence do for our world?
Opportunities to Love
Want to learn how to respond in love? But not sure where to look?
Close to Home
Our families can be the hardest territory. However, the opportunities for growth are right there. No travel required. Simply listen a little more intently to who each person is. How are you different or the same?
What is it like to be that one child or sibling or parent who’s hard for you to handle? How did they come to be that way? How might you settle your own anxiety in order to make space for compassion?
“Those People”
A friend of mine in ministry makes a concerted effort to seek out conversations with those of a different theological bent than he. And not to change their opinions, but because he knows we are more than our ideas.
He’s begun going to coffee and lunch with pastors from churches that are at a very different place on the theological spectrum. Very simply, he wants to understand them.
Are there people like this you can get to know? What are their thoughts? Why do they believe what they do? Where is the overlap in your vantage points?
Really, That Person?
Quite frankly, we’re all confronted with those we just don’t enjoy. We have options. One, we can avoid the person. Two, we can change our life to get away from them. Three, we can maintain connection and allow it to form us.
There isn’t a correct answer. Perhaps the most loving way to respond is to go your separate ways, wishing one another well. Alternatively, maybe there is space to learn God’s way of loving freely, learning what it’s like to live as they do.
How might you be changed? What can the experience teach you about Jesus’ love for self and other?
Our Hope
Our world is increasingly polarized. Wouldn’t it be easier to discard the things we don’t understand or like? After all, we learn, from a very young age that when we don’t like something it’s time to buy another one.
But, life is more than products. How can love change the way we see each other? Our human sisters and brothers, our creature cousins, our planet, life itself have so much to learn about Love through our presence alongside God’s masterpieces.
We say that our world needs love. And here’s the best news. We make up our political parties, our churches, families, schools, our cities
So, who is the other to you? And can you know them? It could change your little corner of the world. And enough of us changing our little corners of the world with love is the hope of our faith.
Oh, and don’t forget! How has God’s love taught you to love better? We’d love to know in the comments below!
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