my heart- on loving well

This isn’t meant to be a post-Valentines day “I’ve been thinking a lot about love” post, but if it seems like it at first hang in there, I think there is more than that here.

……………………………………………………………………………

While we were having dinner celebrating Valentines Day, Joe started to encourage me, he began to talk about how  I love people. He gave examples of how I love Anniston, how I love my friends and then shared about how I motivate him to love more intentionally.

There have been seasons of my life where I would have heard his words and they would have affirmed God’s work in my life. There have been seasons where those words would have spurred me on, giving me motivation and encouragement.

In this season, those words hit me with conviction.

I didn’t want to take anything away from his thoughtful encouragement but I wanted to be transparent and honest.

The thing is… as sweet and thoughtful as his words were, they just didn’t feel true.

There are people in my life that I can look at and say, “they love well.” I see the decisions they make, the way that they talk about others, the way that they spend their time and it is so clear that they love others well. There have been seasons of my life where I may have even considered myself among them, seasons where I was really seeking to love well. But in this season, I feel like I am failing.

Not intentionally but unintentionally failing to love others well.

……………………………………………………………………….

As our conversation continued one phrase continued to come back to me, it was like the piece of the puzzle thatI had been missing:

“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” or in other translations “consider others better than yourself.” Philippians 2:3

In those season where I really felt like I was able to love well, what was it that gave me that freedom? And for those people I see that are loving well, where is that coming from? What is keeping me from living outside of myself? What was it about Jesus that drew people toward Him, what was so radically different about Him?

These were the questions I was asking Joe, and this was the Lord giving me a very clear answer- consider others better than yourself.

………………………………………………………………

The picture that the following verses paint of Jesus is beautiful, and challenging. In his humility he was able to look at  prostitutes, tax collectors and murderers and consider them better, more significant than Himself. A sinless, perfect man in perfect humility, expressing perfect love. That’s radical.

We can’t love perfectly like Jesus loved, but I have seen others expressing love like this. They have rejected the “one-up/ one-down” mentality that our culture encourages. They understand that just because she is more successful doesn’t put her “one up” and just because he is less attractive doesn’t put him “one down”. They have stopped looking at people for what they have to offer and simply consider them as better.

This “better” isn’t based on what they do, and it isn’t meant to encourage a continued hierarchy, it isn’t meant to make me feel like less but it is meant to give me the freedom to love more.

I am not completely sure what this “considering others better” practically looks like, but I am wrestling with it. I want it to become more than a concept or a convicting verse. I want it to be more than something I spout off when I’m sharing my heart. I want it to become real to me, I want it to change me and I want to see it give me the freedom to love others well.

The next time my husband looks at me and tells me that he loves the way I love, I want to be encouraged and blessed.

That’s my prayer.