Chasing After Me

“When love is a theory, it’s safe, it’s free of risk. But love in the brain changes nothing…Love is too beautiful a concept to keep locked up behind a forehead like a prisoner.”  

–Donald Miller in the forward of Love Does, by Bob Goff

 I’m love crazed.

People roll their eyes at me because of it. I think people assume I’m just too naïve to know better.

To set the record straight, I’ve seen crap. I know why love can be hard. I’ve seen the ugliness of humanity. I’ve experienced the ugliness of humanity. And, yes, I’ve even been ugly to humanity.

But crap isn’t an excuse to ignore love.

It’s not an excuse because I believe true life is love. I believe God is Love and God is the source of Life…so it’s logical for me to believe that Love is the source of Life.

I believe that life is only about love.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

Yes, I believe it’s that simple.

“The greatest science in the world; in heaven and on earth; is love.” 

-Mother Teresa

Love isn’t static. Because then it’s not love. Love fills our souls and then moves beyond our own lives.

Love isn’t just a feeling or emotion.

Love is an action whose affects will change us forever…it evokes immense value, gratitude, humility, and a desire to give…give love.

Love is for our neighbors. It’s for our friends. It’s for the strangers we pass on the sidewalk.

Human beings are pre-wired for love. To be loved. To give love.

Life is about the one thing that can overflow from our souls, into the lives of others. Love breaks through walls of religion, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, culture, geography…everything. I believe it’s why the Gospel spread like wildfire in early days. It wasn’t about religion. It was about a simple message of radical love that profoundly changed peoples’ lives. They felt love, and couldn’t not give it away.

The only thing complicated about love is how we try to redefine it with ifs, buts, and rules…or when we assume love is only for ourselves. Even the dictionary defines the noun “love” as a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person. Love is not about you being right, or showing others that you know best…there is no room for judgment in love. Love serves, love gives, is humble, patient, kind, trusts, and hopes.

That is our filter for what love is…a love that never becomes obsolete.

Sound like a tall order? I start by remembering that love is for me…and then works through me.

And then I assure myself that I’ll mess up, but that mess-ups don’t matter in love.

I’m human.

I’ll get in my own way.

I can’t single-handedly change the world.

I don’t have to perform love perfectly to be loved.

Because love isn’t conditional, or contingent upon what I do well or what I screw up. I can’t earn love. True love is a gift. Any other kind of love really isn’t love at all.

That’s how I am loved.

And, honestly, my low moments in life are those spent pitying myself, feeling like I need more for me. Love can never be fulfilled in those moments, because I’ve learned that those moments assume love stops with me. But, the best moments in life are spent giving love away…words, smiles, meals, hugs…it comes in many forms. That kind of love not only changes the one who receives love, but also the one who gives it.

Love is not a commodity. Love is my theology. Love is a mission. Love is our very being.

Let love continue among you. Let it be the air you take in, that uncurls within you, and extends between you. -Hebrews 13:1, The Voice

Sometimes I have crappy days…crappy weeks, even.

Sometimes I get really crabby for no particular reason.

Sometimes some, choice, four-letter-words slip out.

Sometimes money is tight.

Sometimes precious relationships in my life are strained.

Sometimes stress weighs on me.

Sometimes I slam doors shut and yell because I’m angry.

Sometimes I feel weak.

Sometimes I feel confused.

Sometimes I have no confidence.

Sometimes I feel lonely.

Sometimes I feel discouraged.

Sometimes the world disappoints me.

Sometimes I wonder where God is.

Crap goes down in my life. Sometimes it’s significant. Sometimes it’s petty.

It’s easy to get caught up in the bad stuff.

But I choose hope. And I have to remind myself of hope every, single day…because hope is intangible.

Hope is believing what I can’t see. Hope is trusting in goodness and peace.

Hope produces smiles when the heaviness of situations feels unbearable.

Hope finds positives in the ugliest of situations.

Hope convinces me that God turns crap into fertilizer where beautiful things can grow.

Hope removes fear because it reminds me that I have absolutely nothing to lose.

Hope reminds me that someone exists who is bigger and more powerful than me.

Hope inspires me so that I can inspire others.

There’s a lot of power in those four letters.

Those four letters anchor my soul.

I don’t believe being a Christian is about avoiding hell.

I believe following Jesus, and realizing we’re lovable despite our crap, is about finding fulfillment and life…here and now.

I don’t believe the Bible is best read as an instruction book.

I believe that the Bible will change your life when you read it as a love story of an eternal creator pursuing those He loves.

I don’t believe conversations with God have to be filled with elegant, flowery and ridiculously inspirational words and phrases that no one would ever use in real life.

I believe God wants us to know we can talk with Him like we talk with our friends – no matter how happy, sad or angry we are…even if we’re pissed at God, Himself.

I don’t believe that God should be marketed as the ultimate self-help program.

I believe that the true Love and Life that lives inside of us gives more hope to the rest of the world than any pamphlet handed to people on the street ever could.

I don’t believe that heaven will be sparsely populated.

I believe that God did everything in His power to spend eternity with every single being He created.

I don’t believe we have to perform rituals to earn God’s love.

I believe human beings were created to be loved. And, when we experience true Love, love overflows from our lives into the lives of others.

Those are the realizations that changed my life.

That’s why I live the crazy life that I do.

Nothing compares to the moment when you see someone realize they’re loved and cared for. Nothing compares to the moment when someone realizes that despite their many imperfections, God still sees them as perfect. Nothing compares to the moment when someone realizes the Spirit of God Himself all loving…and alive inside of the people they see all around them. Nothing compares to the moment when someone realizes that God has never and will never leave them…and that they’ll never be alone.

No wonder true Christianity broke down walls of ethnic, cultural and spiritual divisions in its early days…radical love will do that.

God isn’t complicated. God is Love.

John 13:34-35 (Voice translation)

So I give you a new command: love each other deeply and fully. Remember the ways that I have loved you, and demonstrate your love for others in those same ways. Everyone will know you as My followers if you demonstrate your love to others.

I believe that big rewards come from big risks. And just this week, it finally got through my dense brain, that even bigger rewards come from big trust.

For me, risks and trust get real when applied relationally. Baring my soul – complete with insecurities, imperfections, annoyances and even giddiness – is scary. Sharing all of who we are with anyone is a risk. But, when relationships are developed under that kind of transparency, they’re precious…they’re real…they’re like home…the relationships themselves are heaven on earth…they withstand.

And I usually forget that part…that they withstand.

They withstand distance, busy-ness and changes in life directions. Relationships built on the big risk of transparency have built-in trust because they’re built ON trust.

My realization? I’m afraid of trusting those to whom I’m closest to love me in return. And that’s sad. As if they’re not capable of loving me as much as I love them? As if people aren’t capable of giving me grace for bummer or crabby days? As if their busyness or distance means they don’t care? Others may show love differently than I, but it doesn’t mean they don’t love. And, honestly, trusting their love might just be my greatest demonstration of love to them.

It’s funny, I spend most of my time in life finding ways to remind people that they’re loved. And, for me, it’s a very spiritual thing. I believe that we (human beings) were created to be loved, and to love in return. And I want everyone to know that. I believe that God loves us through everything around us…through things we see and relationships we experience. And, at some point, we simply need to choose to believe that we’re loved…even when we’re not entirely feeling it…because that is what faith is.

Do you note the irony here?

At some point, I need to trust people…and choose to believe I’m loved…even when I’m not entirely feeling it…because that’s what faith in their love for me is. And the reward? Knowing I don’t have to worry about whether or not they love me, but simply having peace in knowing I’m loved.

Accepting love is a choice. I would know…because it’s a choice I have to make, too.

He hugged me. And then he hugged me again. And then he kissed my cheek. And he spoke to me in a language I couldn’t understand, but his eyes spoke a language I did understand. And, then Vincente handed me his bag of bread. The whole bag.

It was the most humbling experience of my life.

Vincente used to be a hitman. But now he embraces “man.”

Vincente used to take life, now he overflows with Life.

He’s one of the happiest and most generous people I’ve ever met, yet his material possessions are very few. He carries around everything of value to him in his backpack. Based upon what I know about Vincente, I imagine it’s not much more than his Bible, some fishing line and a knife to prepare his fish. He fishes everyday to catch his meals, and some days he only buys an onion and a lime to make ceviche in the rocks by the ocean.

And he gave me his bread. His whole bag of bread. Four pieces of sweet-smelling fresh bread that he just bought at the market…likely his breakfast…for at least a couple days…and he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

It’s the most precious gift I’ve ever received.

I had been teaching about life and the safety we have in the grace of God. But Vincente taught me, in that moment, about the generosity that flows from the manifestation of true life…the kind of generosity that overflows from a life filled with LIFE.

The message of LIFE Vincente shared with me is one etched on my heart. Forever. As I eat that bread for breakfast today, I know that the gift I’m eating came from a place of Life…Life that will nourish and sustain me…Life that, in some way, will always remain a part of my being.