Just Love Some More
Here is some good news: It’s not you who has to do the heavy lifting of loving others. Love for the unlovable is not something you muster up. You can’t love by trying harder. You love by emptying yourself of you – the true ambition of the Christ-centered life – and allowing all that God is to flow out of you. It’s that simple and that profound. Our biggest apprehension should not be “Can I really love like Jesus,” because the answer is “No.” The challenge before us is to get out of the way, and let God do what God does. All we have to have is an open heart and home to those around us. “Sounds good,” you might say. “But what can I really do for others? There is so much trouble and chaos in the world, whatever I do is nothing more than a Band-Aid over a gunshot wound. Does it really matter?”
Well, a Band-Aid is not always a bad thing. Often imitated but never duplicated, Johnson & Johnson has sold more than 120 billion of those little wonderful things. Whenever a tiny solution is offered in the face of some huge problem, the solution is often criticized as too little, and sometimes that criticism is correct, but not always. Band-Aids are inexpensive and versatile. They can be carried and applied by anyone: No medical training is required. And as Malcolm Gladwell says, “Band-Aids have allowed millions of people to keep working or playing or cooking or walking when they would otherwise have had to stop. The Band-Aid is sometimes the best kind of solution out there.”
Pick up the 2000 pound phone call. You might save the person’s life on the other end. Go sit with that eccentric friend who rambles on and on about nothing but seems to need your attention more than others. Put your arms around Pig Pen and hug him tight, even if you have to pinch your nose shut to do it. Let that broken-hearted man or woman into your own heart. It might be just enough to keep them on their feet and in the game.
