Written by Sam L.
- Disclaimer -
I am aware that I am entirely unqualified for this topic. I wrote this to help me process. I hope it will help those who read it to process as well. This is not a solution to the problem of the lack of love, but an admission that I do not love enough or in the right ways. Admitting you have a problem is the first step, right? ~ Sam
The Process of Love
I often find myself in situations that feel beyond my capacity for love. I don't know how to handle it or how I found myself there. I try to love, as Jesus told us too. We reach out to the hurting, to the bleeding, to be as Donald Miller said (in paraphrase) "the hands pressed against the wounds of a bleeding world." But when we do this, or at least when I do this, I often find that I don't know how much pressure to apply, how much love to give, or at what point I'm not loving but hindering. Balance is something that I struggle with. I am often black and white, though my soul craves to find the gray balance which is the base coat of life's colors. Love is not black and white, it is a colorblind gray. Gray is the primer. I don't know if you have ever painted a raw piece of wood without using a primer coat, but when you do this the raw materials absorbs the color, leaving the wood with a faded color instead of the bright reds and blues and greens that you applied to it. When we apply our love to raw humanity, without a primer coat, a base to start with, the brilliance of the love we are painting will become dry and fade quickly. We must first apply the gray primer to our lives and to the lives of those we are loving. If we skip this step in our anxiousness to apply the bright shinny new love it will quickly fade. Love is a process. This is something that I was told, but never understood. I never understood that there are actually steps to love. When people told me that it is a process I took it to mean that you must be patient, calm, not anxious, and all of those thing that are true but won't prepare you to love. The Apostle Peter describes the process in his second letter to a church who was confused by the conflicting ideas of the culture around them and persecuted for holding to the redemption that was God's gift of love to them. Perhaps they had a feeling of being overwhelmed, you think? Perhaps a sense of being in over their heads; that the situation required more love than they were capable of? This is the advice that Peter gives them:
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue,
and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control
with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness,
and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.
For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective
or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
While trying to not make this sound like a college bible class perhaps some definitions are in order? Faith is our reliance on Jesus for our salvation from us ("us" is the opposite of love. If you don't believe this turn on the T.V.). Virtue in Greek is basically excellence or praise worthy. Knowledge is acting on the known or making a study of it (in the West we traditionally call this wisdom). Self-control is self-explanatory, to restrain oneself from the instinctual. Steadfastness can actually be interpreted as to continually wait, which is often what it feels like we are doing when we apply this quality! Godliness has the root word eusebēs, which means well reverent, that is, pious: - devout, godly. Brotherly love is fraternal affection or kindness. Then lastly comes love, which is also affection, but when used in a plural sense it is a feast of love, or something that is dear. All of these steps are put before love on the list that Peter gives us as things to strive after in our pursuit of following Jesus' example of love. Without faith we can abandon all hope; without virtue we have no examples of the glory that our souls long to see; if we do not study what we know of love we will not understand the depths yet undiscovered; without the self-control to restrain our quest for glory we are capable of doing more damage than good; steadfastness is what is required in order to actually apply that self-control that feels like it leads to nothing; without a reverence for something higher than ourselves we have no reason to apply self-control or steadfastness. These are all the steps required to love. It's no simple task. It is not a matter of deciding to love as I was told as a child. It is a process of learning and maturing in order to love. It is boring and tedious. Even defining the steps feels like studying for an English exam. Love is not something to be understood by children, but by those mature in their faiths. The faith of a child is pure, but their love is often misplaced.
All of this leads me to reflect on a time not long ago when my community went through a major "burnout". I have wondered what would lead a group as passionate as mine, who have always tried to love with our last exhausted breaths, to suddenly stop loving and become self-indulging, caught up in our problems more than we cared about the needs of others, even withholding love from those in our own community. I think everyone in the community has their own take on what brought this about, but I know in my life it was a lack of maturity. I was not prepared to love. I had gone from a place of apathy to a place where I loved with my whole being, and I was not prepared for the level of love I plunged into. I had no foundation in love, and when my immaturity caught up to me I gave up on the little love I had known. I became wreckless with my love and centered everything on what I wanted and felt. I was not virtuous, walking in knowledge, steadfast, self-controlled, or really any of the qualities that lead to the love I had claimed to be an example of. I find that I am having to rebuild my foundation. This isn't a confession of a major relapse, and no, I'm not going to rehab. But I am taking an intense look at my life and how I love. I am starting with the baby steps of love starting with my faith and going forward. I do not want to throw love around like a common word. We say "I love you" too much without understanding the commitment that those four letters hold. It is easy to say that we love the homeless, but when it requires steadfastness and we have not walked through the processes, we will fail.
I am young and stupid. This I know and am reminded of often. But with my immaturity comes zeal. My father is the steadiest guy I have ever met. The man is a rock. And he plans everything to the last detail, which is only bad when you are like, "Hey, let drive to Crispy Cream and get a donut." And he's like, "Let me see if it's on the calendar." But still this is better than that random nonsense I dream up to get myself in trouble. This is a quality I admire, since I rarely think through what I'm saying till it's already out of my mouth. He knows exactly what to say and do, because he has walked a path of maturity for over 20 years. I wish it was possible to combine his years of wisdom and walking out the steps of love, with the zeal of my youth. I think this was what Jesus was like on earth. Sort of like a James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause and a Don Corleone from the Godfather. My friend and councilor Tom once told me, "Sam, teaching a young man maturity is like breaking a stallion. At first you let him run and buck around till he exhausts himself. Once he gets calm you put the blanket on his back. Then he'll run and throw up his hind legs some more. Next you place the saddle on his back. Then he'll buck again. Then the bridle. Then lastly you mount him and ride. You just have to let them buck; they'll come around in time." I pray that I don't waste my energy fighting what I am to become, but that I learn to bite the bit and save my energy for the race. I pray that I continue to have those mature in love surround me, and that they don't ever think I am untamable.
This is not my confession, these are my observations. These are not my convictions, this is my prayer for my life. I pray that I will be able to confess when I lose sight of love, and that I will be convicted by those around me when I stray from the call on my life, which is to love. I pray that I will love those around me enough to allow Jesus to speak through me when they lose sight of love. I pray that we, as John called us, the children of the elect lady, will mature in our love.
