God calls us to love. To love Him. To love ourselves. To love others. Seems difficult. Flipping daunting. Like He's telling us to climb a mountain, and then cuts our limbs off and ships us off to holland where there are no mountains in sight to climb.
Loving god is something I've struggled with a lot in the past. The thought of falling for someone you've never actually physically met seems beyond impossible. I've written about it before, so to save some virtual paper, you can read about it here.
Loving myself. Now there's a tricky, uneasy, insecurity-reering and downright ridiculous thing to have yourself do. I've heard the christian message time and time again that says God "made me the way I am and loves me for it and there's no need to get myself down because I have a loving father who cares". Now all of that is true, but it never really helped me actually love myself. The reason being that my identity was wrapped up in all the wrong things. Or just things. Lots of things. Like being known as the skinny one.
For years I was the one everyone envied for being able to eat I could and not put on a kilo. I liked it. It became a big part of who I thought of myself as being.
When my body shape started to change, and I started putting on a bit of weight (normal, healthy, nothing to be afraid of weight), I freaked out. I couldn't not be that person anymore. I didn't want to no longer be able to chow down thousands of delicious calories and have my metabolism not bother effortlessly burn them all off. While fully aware I wasn't fat, I became down about not being able to be so carefree in enjoying my food.
My identity was so wrapped up in being the lightweight that losing it meant losing part of myself.
I was afraid of becoming something else. Being viewed differently by the world. And it was only when I lost this part of who I was that I realised it was part of who I was. That's when it clicked. That's when I realised I wasn't going to be able to love myself the way God calls me to if who I see myself as being is SO FAR from who I am in him. We were made to find our securities, joys, greatness and well, all of who we are in god. So it's only natural that we fail to love ourselves when we're so caught up in this world. We were made for so much more.
Loving others was something I always secretly prided myself in being able to do. I'm not really one to hold grudges. I don't really have any enemies. My life in terms of loving others has been quite blissful. Or so I thought. Until this summer, when listening to a series on Leviticus by Rob Bell. He got to the bit in chapter 27 that revolves around the year of jubilee. In this year, God's people of the time were called to have a year off. A year OFF. No work for a year. A year full of celebrating and feasting and worshipping and loving. My kind of year. As soon as the trumpet sounded to mark the beginning of the year, everyone was called to pay off the debts of those in debt, give them their land back, feed those who were without, extend a helping hand to those in need. Free of charge. Regardless of how they'd acted or behaved to get themselves into debt in the first place.
Now not only was this a beautiful thing for the people of the time, but it is also a picture of what Jesus did for us. He payed off our debts. If we choose to accept the offer, we're free from our debts. Out of the red, into the black. Love. And we're called to do the same to others. We've got to LOVE the people in need who are in need because of their own mistakes. Because of drugs, gambling, selfishness, sin. Our place isn't to judge whether or not they deserve love, we're just to love. Harder than loving an annoying brother I think.
So now here's the good news. The news that allows us to love. To love God, ourselves and others.
God is love. Love is God. We're not to do ANY of it alone. As if we could love without God. By definition, it's impossible. If God is love then wherever love exists, God exists. We don't have a choice if we want to love, God'll be there. I suggest we get our knees grubby and dwell in him, hear what He has to teach us on a daily basis about love. We do that, we do love.
