Chasing After Me

I’ve always loved people. I’ve always loved loving people.

I think most people do. I believe most of us love loving others because it’s literally what we were made to do.

I’m not talking about ooey-gooey sappy Valentine’s Day love. I’m talking about the compassion that oozes out of you when you surrender your entire being for the cause. To the point that you can’t stop thinking about others, praying for them and feeling what they feel. To the point where mere thoughts of people and their joys give you butterflies or when their struggles bring you to tears. Even when you don’t know them.

Frankly, I’m incapable of loving like that. But the desire to love like that is keeping me up at night. I can’t even sleep. All I can think about is this crazy love.

Eight months ago, I loved people. But felt some restraint…like loving them might take up too much time, energy or mental capacity that I didn’t have. I wanted to have it…but I didn’t have it in me. Eight months ago, I was also in the midst of a deep, self-reflective period of my life. What I was doing was no longer fulfilling…and all I could wonder was whether or not there was more for me. I’d gotten so wrapped up in all of the cares of everyday life that I was only living, not LIVING…with little time left to love.

Some might look back at that period of my life and think I just needed more time. But, the reality is, I had it all wrong. I was working hard to live AND love…when what I really should have been doing living TO love. See the difference? It’s huge.

I love loving. But loving became overwhelming when I saw it as a responsibility, even if it was fulfilling. My capacity was tapped. I wasn’t sure how I could love anymore with the life I was living.

I can’t put my finger on when I actually realized what was happening. My frame gradually shifted. I started to do more and more with a completely different mindset. I began working for clients with a genuine compassion for their businesses, returning emails, phone calls and scheduling meetings didn’t phase me anymore, because I just wanted people to know how much I cared about them.

I try not to over-spiritualize this blog, but be clear on this: this desire to love is divine. Not human. The only way a desire to love like this can grow is by realizing that you’re imperfect, and loved anyway.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not boasting. Because I screw up all the time. The point is though, I’m busier now than I’ve ever been in my life and somehow have found capacity and energy to do more. I now know it’s because the “AND love” has been replaced with the “TO love.” Loving is no longer an extra. It fulfills me. It fulfills others. And then it winds out of control…and that’s ok…because having a crazy out-of-control love is probably the best thing that could happen to all of us. A lot of world problems and issues could be solved if people would take the time to care about others and then put that love into action.

I just finished reading a book called Crazy Love, by Francis Chan. In there he points out something pretty profound:

“God’s definition of what matters is pretty straightforward. He measures our lives by how we love…but Paul writes that even if ‘I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing’ (1 Cor. 13:2-3). Wow. Those are strong and unmistakable words. According to God, we are here to love. Not much else really matters” (p. 93-94).

Wow. Loving isn’t my job. Loving is my life.

I’m no bible scholar, but was reading in Romans 12:11 where it says to “never be lazy in your work, but serve the Lord enthusiastically” when something struck me. The placement of that verse. Do you think it’s any coincidence that the two verses prior to that are about loving others and most of the verses following that one are about loving and serving others? Could it be that the “work” Paul writes about there is your job to love? I’m just saying…

Think about replacing “AND love” with “TO love.” We don’t need more capacity. We need a new frame.