I think, for the first time in my life, I'm really learning what it means to love.
Learning that love is not about approval, status, feeling fuzzy and good 100% of the time.
Love is about encouraging and challenging those around you to be the best they can be. Love is about not letting someone not reach their potential. Love is about sacrifice.
Love is the Cross.
For too long in my life, I've believed the Hollywood lie that love always makes you feel good, is always easy, ties up in nice pretty packages with shiny bows. In the past, I've equated love with approval. And while I still want those I love to like the decisions I make, I'm realizing my earthly loves and approval addiction are temporal. They can't outweigh the eternal love given to me on the Cross.
How am I learning these things about love?
A group of teenage girls.
When I see the students in my life group at Advance, I see the potential for them to be amazing, godly women. I see opportunities to help these girls grow, if I have the courage, humility, and obedience to help and encourage them. I'm realizing that to help these girls grow, they need encouragement and challenge...not just warm fuzzies. I don't want these girls to have superficial Hollywood relationships, but be rooted in the grace and truth of the Gospel.
Jesus spoke grace and truth into the lives of His disciples. He loved them and encouraged them, even when they kept messing up, kept misunderstanding His instructions, and were downright stupid. He saw past their insecurities, their idiosyncracies, and saw the person they had the potential to be, and fed into that potential.
Sounds like the perfect example of love to me. Who doesn't want their loved ones to help them reach their God-given potential?!
Simultaneously, I love this challenge and am more than a little bit terrified. But, as my good friends the W's told me last weekend, 'seek first the kingdom.'
Learning to love like Christ sounds like a pretty good way to seek the kingdom.
Let's see how it goes.
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