My [Lack of] Love

     I suppose I will be taking many of Bryce's thoughts for this entry. So do forgive me, Bryce, but you and I both know how similarly we feel at times.
     Yes, beware. This entry will entail my feelings and emotions, particularly love. Love is a very strange thing, because no matter how much effort one gives, he cannot control his love. It will be dead, or minimal, or maximal, or fierce and crazy. But it has absolutely nothing to do with will - not human will anyway. I can try as hard and as long as I want to love my enemies, and if I do, great; but love is not my own doing, because God Himself is love. He is many other things too, and He desires many other things from us, but I believe love is at the top of His priority list (if you don't believe me read Romans and 1 Corinthians). So now we have a premise - love is God's will,not man's.
      Many times throughout my high school years have I desired to have a love so deep for my peers that the whole world would be able to say, "Wow! God lives in that person!" And how I have desired to love those people I come into conflict with. How I have longed to love my family. But I suppose a huge part of why I feel as though I have wasted much of my life during high school is my lack of ability to love. I've talked to people about this feeling of wasting time, and they have told me, "Jon, you haven't wasted your high school years. Remember, you did..." Sure, that can be encouraging. But my distress in this comes not from what I did do; it's what I didn't do that bothers me.
     This morning in Romans 12:9-13 I studied some basic guidelines for life on loving without hypocrisy. Take a look at what the passage says: "Love without hypocrisy... be devoted to one another in brotherly love... give preference to one another in honor... contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality." Am I doing those things? Not by a long shot. And what happens when I take the 1 Corinthians 13 test: "Jon is patient" - okay, that's far enough; I get an "F." I don't want to read the part that says love goes beyond patience and is kind. I don't want to believe the part that says love will bear the burden of trial and come out a victor through the rubbish, because I really don't want to weather any storms right now. Life is fine for me. I'm good enough. Don't bother me with all this super-sainty stuff about love.
     Last night I read the first few pages of a book entitled Worldliness. C.J. Mahaney composed the first chapter - and I "love" C.J. Mahaney. The very first page of the book was dedicated to the example of Thomas Jefferson... and his scissors. He didn't appreciate the heavy conviction of the Bible, so he snipped out the sections that he liked and pasted them to "The Jefferson Bible," then left the things about hell and accountability and such in the original. Do you think 1 Corinthians 13 was in the Jefferson Bible? I doubt it. And if it was, he probably didn't give a second thought about it; it was a mistake. When I give it a deep thought, 1 Corinthians 13 and Romans 12 aren't in the Jon Ross Selective Version. It's passages like those that are hard to swallow.
     And this year so far has been one massive conviction for me; I think my heart is 10 sizes too small. So I judge people. Very easily to I become annoyed. And when I don't get the attention I want (and heaven forbid the universe revolve around someone other than me), I grumble. I am a living illustration of James 4:1-4. I have lusts, and when they are not gratified I kill and destroy. These lusts mar my time with believers - in their homes, in church services, and in youth group. They keep me from being lively in a conversation. They prevent me from sending another encouraging text. They cause me to be angry with my family. Why God chose me to be His vessel, I will never know, for I am the most hateful of all saints.
     But this brings me to the conclusion: God's working and God's love don't depend on my (in)ability and my strength - or lack thereof. You see, I know a Man who never did have lusts. He never argued with His family, He was never bitter toward His peers, He never slandered or back-talked, He was never malicious or murderous, and He never thought an evil thought even about those who hated Him most. And one day He went and died on a cross to give a purpose for life. He showed His love because of my inability to love. He was merciful to me because of my malice. And that is something I will never be able to fully grasp. But it is the heart of love, the center. This is the model God has given us to follow. He sent His Son to be a living example. And how do I respond day after day but by proudly lifting my head in the air and thinking of myself and myself only. Yet still, where sin abounds grace abounds all the more. And no, that doesn't mean everything is okay with me being inwardly angry and malicious. But it does mean that God is merciful to me and that His faithfulness to me never fails, even when mine to Him does.