Weighed down by a burden. That probably explains a lot about my week last week. Actually a better description would be "weighed down by a burden of love." Love? As a burden? The truth is-sometimes it is.
I wrote a few weeks ago about a person in my life whom I was having trouble loving. Last week was kind of a culmination of that, a where the rubber meets the road moment. Without going into the details, this person completely stressed me out. She was illogical and emotional. She was stubborn and demanding. And I found myself needing to read 1 Corinthians 13 almost every day, just to remind myself of how I was supposed to be acting.
And actually I think that's one of the reasons it felt like a burden. Those words "supposed to." I'm supposed to love this person. Last week, I felt like I was constantly having to beat my heart into submission. It did not feel good. Or happy. Or peaceful.
Then I happened to catch a blurb on the radio. It was part of a sermon on sexual purity. But something the speaker said resonated with me. He talked about that feeling of doing something because we have to. In his case, he meant choosing sexual purity because we have to. He wasn't saying that people should choose to live in sexual sin but what he did say was that we really need to let God out of the box a bit. That He desires sexual purity for us because it is what is best for us. And that when we come to see those boundaries as the result of the loving actions of a Father, it begins to shape our choices in diferent ways than if we see those boundaries as the result of some holy arm twisting. Or because we see those boundarie as opportunities to measure up to a righteous standard and that by living up to high standards might somehow make us seem more pleasing to God.
Sometimes loving someone feels the same way. Like holy arm twisting. Or like a chance to win brownie points with the Almighty. But to think of loving someone who is hard to love in terms of this is what is best for me is an entirely different thing. God doen't want to force me to love someone. And He will not think any less of me (or more of me) based on how well I love someone else.
I think maybe that last part was important for me to hear this week. That I do not have to love this person perfectly for God to think highly of me. God loves me because He made me. He is united with me because I chose to accept His gift of grace, delivered in the form of His Son. God does not look at me and see my ugly heart that is struggling to love. He looks at me and sees the righteousness of Christ meshed with an opportunity to live the best life He has for me. And what He desires for me is that I continue to live in Christ and that I continue to seek out God's best for all areas of my life.
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