Love is Tough

"Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful." Proverbs 27:6 nkjv


We've all been there.  A friend wrongs you or someone else, does something against God's Word, maybe even abandons your friendship.  What do you do?  Do you sit there silently and pass it off like nothing happened; The world will go on.  Friendship is all about tough love.  If there is no tough love, there is no friendship.  I recently had to show tough love on a friend and found out their view of the friendship wasn't as faithful as mine and lost that friendship.  It hurts, but in the end I have to know I did the right thing.  Tough love is not easy, hence the name.  But for an example of someone who usually perfects the impossible, let me tell you a story. 


There once was this rich young dude who ruled in some land.  When he sees the crowd following around this guy named Jesus, he RUNS up and falls flat to his knees and asks how he can get to heaven.  The guy thinks he's pretty good, confident in the answer he thinks he'll expect.  Jesus lists off some of the commandments written in the Old Testament, leaving off the first part of the great commandment quoted earlier in the gospel.  The dude feels even better now! "I have kept all of those since I was a wee little one!" he blurts out.  But then comes Jesus' right hook if you will.  He shows a perfect demonstration of tough love.  Only Mark records this minute detail,


"Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," He said.  "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.  Then come, follow me." Mark 10:21 niv


Did you catch that? I bolded it just for you.  He loved him.  He looks into the dude's heart, sees where it lies, where he is struggling, and calls him out with a rather tough commandment to ultimately love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 10:27).  The dude becomes sad and walks away, I imagine, with shuffled feet and a lowered head contemplating all he owns and what that statement means.  We ultimately don't know how the man responds.  Sometimes tough love takes time to sink in.  Who knows, maybe after this, the guy walked home to his kingdom and was like, "I'm tired of all this, I'm going to follow Jesus" or maybe it was just a little too hard for him to let go.  After that, it is up to him to respond.  


I can imagine me in that story playing the role of tough lover.  I'd have been like, "WOW, you've kept all those commandments? come be my friend! Oh I know you are still a little distant from me in this large area, but I'll look over it because, hey, your mostly there and I am always looking to not run away my friends"  And that is why I don't play that role.  


I'm reminded of a loving Father who is love, and yet at the same time completely just.  I'm reminded that I mess up all the time in my life.  I forget God.  I don't talk to Him.  I run away from Him.  I go against His commandments.  But the Lord, being the Good Shepherd He is, follows me every time I scurry away, lovingly disciplines me by keeping me over his shoulders, and bonds with me until I am ready to return to the flock.  


"My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline, and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those He loves, as a father the son he delights in" Proverbs 3:11-12.  


If you have a friendship that needs a little tough love, maybe bitterness is growing after a wrong was done to you, maybe you witnessed a friend do something hurtful or inappropriate to another friend or person, GO and demonstrate your real love for the friend by confronting the situation and showing tough love.  You might lose a "friend".  But if you look over it and pass on like nothing happened, do you really have a true friendship in the first place? True love stands up for integrity, righteousness, forgiveness, etc.  Do you?

Love is Personal

I want flowers! I don't want flowers! JUST GIVE ME CHOCOLATE! I want a card! I want a life-size teddy bear (saw that on tv)! I want a date night! I don't want to celebrate! I just want something creative from my significant other! Happy Valentines Day. If Ive learned anything from hearing girls talk to each other during this holiday, its that each one celebrates, or refuses to celebrate, this holiday differently and personally. Every relationship is tuned to those in the relationship. You always do things for the other person to make them feel cherished, unique, loved. (Hopefully not just one day out of the year.) If love in a relationship is not personal, I can tell you matter-of-factly, the relationship will fail, or be miserable. I was watching "Up All Night" on tv the other day during it's valentine day special episode. One couple on the show was having their first celebration of the day. The lady, who knows how to do nothing practical, cooked a meal for the first time and served it over romantic lighting and table decorations. All she wanted was to be rewarded or noticed, but the guy had other things on his mind and wasn't paying attention. . . and things went awry from there. The other couple who was well practiced in years ate Chinese food in front of the television reminiscing about years of graffiti art or tattoos displaying their love. While the first relationship was thoughtful, it wasn't personal, and while the second relationship was personal, it had lost it's thoughtfulness over the way. Both. Are. Lacking.


This is supposed to be "the day of love" so I figured I had to write something about "true love". That only makes since, right? I mean after all, love with a wife, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, dog, cat, horse, computerized phone technology, etc, is great (except maybe that last one) but love with an everlasting bridegroom is so much more! We are always on God's mind. He is always thinking of ways to show us His love in a unique and creative manner. How can you beat the creativity of someone who created the universe?!? And then Jesus came and died sacrificially, not expecting anything in return, for everyone, and yet for each person in a separate, personal way.


I have this dream or vision or thought or whatever you want to call it. I imagine you have all seen the footprints poem. At the end of that poem, the Lord explains that when there is only one set of footprints in the sand, that is when He is carrying us. I always imagine this day at the beach, probably the Oregon Coast because it seems a little overcast which just makes the water look that much cooler, and there I am, 6 maybe 7 years old, playing in the water, running around. And then a man. . . no, my father. . . walks up and picks me up and lifts me up on his shoulders. He then begins to run around and spin in circles (remember how fun that used to be?) He walks me up and down the beach a ways pointing things out: the hue of the ocean, the size of the hills and mountains, the density of the forest. It's like the greatest Valentine's day times 12. . . . . thousand. . . . . . billion. . . . . . you know what, let's just forget the number. And then He points out in the distance over a forested hill and there is a beautiful city which I can barely just make out. He lets me down off His shoulders, points in the direction, grabs my hand, and waits for me to take the first step in that direction. It is one of my most personal, intimate moments with my bridegroom.


Guys! (and girls, although you were included in that highly generic term.) OUR GOD IS A PERSONAL GOD. AND HIS LOVE IS AN INFINITELY PERSONAL LOVE! He could never love you any more than He does right now. And He definitely couldn't love you any less. He's like a Giant teddy bear filled with chocolate, holding heart shaped balloons and flowers, singing a song! Take a moment and breath that visualization in. And then imagine the stars, the moon, the mountains, the oceans, the tides, the flowers, the lakes, the forests, the deserts, the atoms, the human body, the animal kingdom, water, ice, water vapor, heat, light, reason, etc. etc. etc. And that love so vastly displayed, came and died for all the things you and I have ever done wrong, and instead gave us everything He ever did right. And not only that, He rose again, promising to always be with us, pointing us over the hill to the city in the distance, grabbing our hand to always be with us, and providing the power and energy to keep us going after each step.


Each person has their own connection with the Lord. He is the hope to the hopeless, the father to the fatherless, the joy to those in moments of sorrow, the defender and supported to the widow, always interceding on our behalf at the right hand of the father. Whatever you are going through, or whatever life circumstances dealt you, remember that God is always with you; His love is always there! It's infinite, sacrificial, but most of all,


Personal

Love is an Arrow

Did you know that life on earth is a line segment? I mean, I hate to break out the high school math back on ya, but life has a starting point, a steady constant time speed, and an ending point.  Sometimes it may seem like life is going faster than it is at other times, but then we digress into relativity and I lose grasp of this catchy little visual.  A line segment is classified by it's finite characteristics. 

Love on the other hand is like a never ending arrow.  The question is, where is that arrow pointing?  This holiday season has got me thinking a lot about love and Christmas and this countries culture.  This Christmas I got fortunate enough to finally land a job at Target after a very long job search that lasted well over a year.  Unfortunately it was only seasonal.  While working there on the days leading up to Christmas, I was quite disturbed at a Christmas culture that I guess I had chosen to ignore.  Mothers would come in looking for presents for their kids.  They would unravel lists I thought I would only see on Santa movie specials.  Very specific lists I should add.  And if they felt one kid was getting more presents than another, it was crucial to give the other kid more.  I thought Christmas was supposed to be about love! Love among friends and family and most importantly about God, a God that was born a man more than 2000 years ago because he loved us so much. 

The problem with the love I witnessed with the all too common Christmas culture in America is that it is also a line segment.  It goes from one person to another and ends there.  Love, true love that is, has no ending.  A gift of true love is a never-ending arrow straight upward that involves both people.  It should make both the gift giver look upward, and the gift receiver look upward.  Last time I checked, a video game, or a dinosaur, or a brand new tv, has never pointed me upward toward God.  In fact, they usually do the opposite.  In most instances, they waste time, they tempt, and they cut off relationships.  Don't get me wrong, presents are nice and fun and fun to give.  However, most of the time the reactions elicited by Christmas are jealousy, guilt, pride, solitude, laziness, all of which are missing the point of the CHRISTmas meaning. 

Love is not finite, it is most definitely infinite.  You can never reach a limit on love.  That is most definitely exampled by God who has a limitless reach to His love for us.  During times of this life where there seems to be no direction, or times where life seems to be flying by too fast, times where you are bored out of your mind, or others where you are too busy to do anything but work and sleep, the way to get off the segment (figuratively and literally) is to love.  For by loving others and pointing your arrow to God you are in fact making your life line segment an arrow as well.  The great thing about a segment and an arrow is that, when added, they will always make an arrow. 

Christmas day has already come and gone, but starting this new year off, make a resolution to love others at every chance, with every conversation! Let others come to know the God of love through letting God love through you.  There is no more important calling.  Love God! Love Others! Boom roasted.

Happy New Years

Love is accepting

I've thought a lot about what makes a person quiet, outgoing, shy, rambunctious especially in my own life.  I am beginning to notice a trend.  Lately, on tv, there has been a few shows on regarding bullying in schools.  Kids would shut down, even to the point of no hope, because they were teased, abused, and generally unaccepted.  That is a terrible realization because there is so much hope and love in just the simple act of acceptance, and yet these kids didn't have it.  

Middle school is an interesting time in life.  From personal experience and from counseling kids at camp, or now at church, it is all about acceptance and popularity.  I used to, and still want to go back and counsel kids down in Oregon at one of the coolest camps I have ever seen.  The camps are 4th-6th, middle school, and high school, and each one is completely different.  4th-6th is by far the easiest.  They are at that stage in life where when you become friends with someone, its not overly based on first conversations or popularity, its based on playing out on the playground together and just bonding.  They don't feel too pressured, they just love fun.   In high school, generally everyone is more chill and just wants to hang out.  They already know where they belong and just love to hang out with their friends.  But middle school, oh deary.  For probably the first time, they are at a new school, in a new situation, having to prove themselves in a desperate attempt to fit in and be accepted.  Their energy levels are still off the chart but instead of using them all for fun, they are using them to play an intricate social game where not everyone wins. 

When I was in middle school, or specifically 6th grade I was generally not accepted.  I mean, the reasons were obvious.  Instead of playing foursquare, which i dibble-dabbled in occasionally, I would sit outside the library and read the Bible.  Strange kid.  Of course, I was still 5'2" and wearing glasses.  It wasn't until about 8th grade, by now 6'0", contacts, school record hurdling, etc. that I was beginning to be accepted (hate to say how superficial it all is).  It wasn't until sophomore year that I had found where I belonged with my group of friends who enjoyed the activities I did.  All that to say, looking back on my life, there are times when I am quiet, where I feel unaccepted, and there are times where I am incredibly energetic and outgoing because I am accepted.  And I wonder how many people are that same way, if not all of us.  We are looking to be accepted and until we are, we have no confidence in who we are, or how to act.

It makes me wonder how many times, I myself could have accepted someone else to ease them out of their quietness.  Everyone wants to be accepted.  It's why we all do what we do, sports, acting, writing, etc.  We want to express ourselves in hopes that others will accept us.  Love is all about acceptance and belonging.  Story after story in the Bible, Jesus would walk up to an unaccepted person, and invite them to find their belonging in Him.  The blind, the lepers, the crippled, the uncouth, the tax collectors, the "sinners".   He would accept the opposite of what is generally accepted today.  Can you imagine a school with Jesus as a student?  Going around from lunch table to lunch table talking to the incredibly smart, the socially unaccepted, the kids who can't afford nice clothes, etc.  That would be a completely different school then what I experienced.  It would probably flip the social "caste" on it's head. 

We are told to love in the Bible; to love God, and to love our neighbors.  And yet where is the love?  I want to encourage everyone reading this, including me (because I am reading this too) to take an extra effort to love today, tomorrow, the rest of the week, FOREVER.  To really just take the time and accept someone you haven't accepted yet.  Invite them to something, hang out with them, accept them.  You never know if that's a person's first time being accepted or not. 

Badger Mountain Sunset

Love is a puzzle

Pardon the picture, but it's college football Saturday so I have to root for my Ducks and Wildcats. 

Do you ever have those times where it seems you take a side step out of life? As if God is giving you an insight into various other places in the world? Call me weird, but sometimes I take a step out of what I see with my own eyes and began to wonder what other peoples eyes are seeing. There is probably some guy sipping rich authentic Swiss hot cocoa on the slopes of Monaco overlooking the thousands of yachts down in the Mediterranean on a beautiful Sunday morning. Or some little child, standing next to his parents, looking out at the sun set across the Grand Canyon, for the first time seeing the vast magnificence and power of creation. Or a couple of friends dining out at lunch at a hectic Hong Kong restaurant, looking out the window at the thousands of people walking, biking, mo-peding, driving. And then you began to think of places that aren't so elegant. A child, waking up at sunrise, sitting in a mud puddled street, no parents to run back to, playing with a flat soccer ball someone had delivered months ago from the other side of the world, yet still with more joy and hope than most. A group of Christians in Nepal, sitting in the shadow of Mt. Everest, excommunicated from taking part in their local village, constantly living in a land of beauty but with death and persecution breathing down their neck. A college student, nestled among 30,000 thousand other students on a beautiful palm lined campus, yet still feeling alone, contemplating suicide, as they all just walk by, wondering where God is and why this supposed God of love doesn't show His love to him/her. 

Life can sometimes seem like a 10 billion piece jigsaw puzzle. You search and search for where your particular piece fits in, trying to match up colors with other pieces. When I do puzzles I always try and place matching pieces near each other, and then look for similar shaped locking components. It's easy with a 10 piece puzzle, still easy with a 100 piece, way harder with 1000, incredibly difficult with my biggest puzzle of 5000. Can you imagine trying a 10 billion piece puzzle? That would be my 5000 piece puzzle and multiplying it by 2 million! I look out at my city of 240,000 and begin to get overwhelmed sometimes when I think about what everyone is doing at every single instant. Some are at the river, some are at all different sorts of work, some hiking up the hills and around the parks, and even others sitting in class at school. And then expanding that to the entire state of 7 million, the country of 310 million, and to the world at 7 billion. And yet God looks at this daunting puzzle and one at a time places puzzles right where they belong, not messing up once. Its a quite amazing realization and puts me at awe of God. He has us all working together for His plan, as well as the trillions of plants and animals, the molecules in the air and water, etc. He holds it all together. Can you imagine that? As I sat on my bed last night pondering that, I'll be honest, I was quite fearful of the implications of that realization. That is HUGE! 

Sometimes, if you concentrate on the entire puzzle, you can become depressed and overwhelmed. You see all the pain and suffering, false hope and false security, and you wonder how you are going to help fix it. Take it easy, God has it all in His hands! He will use you wherever He puts you to match up with the puzzle pieces next to you. You don't have to solve the puzzle on your own, just ask the Lord what pieces next to you He wants you to love, talk to, battle the enemy with. 

Take this simple truth and let it awe you and comfort you.

Love is Jesus

 There seems to be a mentality creeping through the hinges of modern-day Christianity that places the impossibility of man's actions into an impossibility of God's actions.  This can be seen through miracles: because I haven't seen them, they must not exist; through prophecy and tongues or other gifts: because I may or may not have that certain gift, its a little sketchy that you do/don't; and through, what I want to talk most about, love: because I have certain things going on in my life limiting my perception of love, God must also have those limitations.  Now it doesn't quite come out that plainly (most of the time).  We went through 1 Corinthians 13 the other day at church, which btw's, is awesome.  That whole verse 4-8 section always gets me thinking and rethinking and re-rethinking life and how much we can't comprehend about God's love. 

"Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek it's own; is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things; love never fails." NKJV 

Jesus is Agape, or ἀγάπη, or a love that seeks nothing in return, a love described in every usage of that verse.  He suffers long with us and is kind, despite everything we have done.  He does not envy for what's not His (mainly cause it is all His), instead, He is jealous for us (completely different usage and definition, and quite a great song, feel free to sing the rest). He does not parade Himself, puff Himself up.  He does not behave rudely or seek His own, as He died there on the cross for all of us to do His Fathers will instead of His own.  He took it all so that you and I might be considered totally righteous in Him.  He is not provoked, or literally, made sharp toward us and thinks no evil, keeping no list or record of our wrongs as they were completely paid for on that cross.  He doesn't rejoice when we do wrong, but He rejoices when we glory Him, the author of truth.   He bears all things with me, He believes in me, He hopes in me, He endures all things with me.  He has the entire picture of history laid before Him so when we are without hope, when we doubt, He is there seeing all eternity believing in us and hoping, or confidently expecting, us.  His love never fails. 

Sometimes that mentality of man I was talking about earlier creeps in and says, since man gets angry with me, since man is not patient with me, since man makes a list of wrongs toward me, rejoicing when I screw up and not rejoicing in the truth, we seem to think God somehow does the same thing.  I have seen many instances where God has been blamed for being angry at someone, or that He can't forgive you because of the list He has against you.  Let me tell you right now, the Lord loves you in every sense of this verse.  His view of us is entirely different than the world's view of us.  Do not make that dangerous connection that doubts God's love for us because man has not loved us. 

If you currently think God is angry at you, rejoicing in when you do wrong, writing a list of errors you make, go to this verse over and over.  Go to John 3, and Romans, and 1 John 4, etc.  Take that lie and pray it to God and pray for His truth to restore you.  That lie is not of God for God is love.  Never forget that!  "What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us", that famous quote by Tozer, is so true.  Do we think of God as some angry tyrannical king who beats us when we do wrong, or do we view Him for as He truly is (which would take a lot more topics to discuss) written in the word and evidenced in creation.  I love to think about that verse sometimes and make sure my view of God is not off base, constantly getting into the word.  It's one of the only ways to contest lies and misconceptions.  Take a moment and really think about how you view God. . . make sure you know He is not angry at you.  Plaster truths like 2 Corinthians 5 which state that Jesus' death for us not only forgave us of our sins but reconciled us to him in His righteousness.  Read and re-read the gospels, constantly going back to His sacrifice for you. 

Jesus is the key.  Jesus died for you and for me so that we might have victory.  He overcame the world so that we might overcome the world and all of its lies and temptations.  Focus on Jesus, focus on His love, not on your boyfriends/girlfriends love, not on a bosses love, not on an enemies love, not even on a friends love.  Focus on Jesus' love only, for on it is the encapsulation of Agape.

God is love - 1 John 4:16

Love is a Jump

I remember standing there at Smith River in Northern California, perched high above the water, trying to will myself to jump. It was the highest I had ever jumped before. I mean I had jumped from a puny, wimp rock at Applegate Lake in Southern Oregon, but this was the big time. My brother, the crazy, fear suppressing, thrill-seeking, man that he is, was urging me to jump, as he continually walked by me, jumped, walked back up, jumped, etc. It's a difficult task to stand there, 50ft, 70ft, 100ft off the water, looking down, unable to see through the water below, and urge yourself to jump. Even after watching someone else jump and knowing the water is safe, even after talking yourself into doing it, there is still a point where your leg muscles just won't cross over that threshold. Your mind relentlessly evaluates it more and more as time goes on. Sometimes you think you can will yourself over, other times you sit on the rock hoping time will pass faster and no one will notice you until you leave.

I heard this analogy at a conference I was at in Colorado Springs called Desperation Conference. It was by a speaker who belonged to the Bethel church in Redding, CA. Maybe you've never been rock jumping before and don't relate to the experience; maybe that doesn't even scare you. Maybe it's jumping out of an airplane, maybe it's boarding an airplane. Think of something where you get there, trying to will yourself to do it, but can't seem to cross that line of no return. Using the rock jumping, the speaker was saying there is a line right in front of your toes, that once you jump over, you can't return. He called that line Holiness, but I think you could put a number of words there, passion for God, desire to follow God, trust in God. Yes, holiness is the outcome of all of those, so really it can all go hand in hand.

You can stand on that rock and say that you love God. You can just stand there, acting like a Christian, working like a Christian, talking like a Christian. But there is a difference in standing on the rock and saying you love God, and jumping off the rock for Him. On the rock, you are safe, comfortable, where as the leap, it takes faith, trust, obedience. God is leading all of us to leap off that rock, to leave everything behind in obedience to follow Him. And when you jump, there isn't any going back. You can't love God and be unholy. jumping off that rock means giving everything to God, and that in essence is holiness. There is no midway point. You either jump and end up in the water, joyous, ready to do anything, or you are still on the rock wondering why life doesn't feel quite to it's potential.

Love is a jump. It's a hard jump. One that requires your whole life! It can be scary giving up control of your life. After you jump, (in the words of Hitch) "you just drop like a rock. . . wondering the whole way down . . . why the hell did I jump". But then you hit the water and you realize God's love for you, His path for you, are far better than anything you could have ever imagined. You realized He is working a far more intricate path than anything you could have experienced sitting on the rock, acting like you were in the water. Go all in, cross that line of no return

JUMP!