She knows just what it takes...
There were 2 biblical verses that have been filling my thoughts lately:
- Love your neighbour as yourself.
- Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
They are a reminder to me that we really only know God when we interact with other people. There is no way to say, “I love God” when we also hate people. Even those who are most different from us, or with whom we disagree. Frankly, it’s not easy to love people. They don’t act the way we would want, they do things that are hurtful, or they are inconsiderate. Even in our families, it’s hard to love everyone. In larger families, like my own, we are closer to some people than others, and the one we’re closest to changes over time. I’ve also listened to friends talking about their family interactions, where there will be one person who is ostracized from the rest, and people go years without speaking to their parents or siblings. (I don’t understand that, but we’ll leave that for another time.)
But these verses speak not just of loving others, but loving them as we love ourselves. How much do we really love ourselves? How often do we look at ourselves and find something wrong, something that doesn’t measure up to an ideal? How many times do we tell ourselves, “You’re great. I love you,” and mean it? If we don’t love ourselves, then how can we love others? How can we not love ourselves and say, “God loves you.” God does. Make no mistake about that. But if we do not love ourselves, we close ourselves off from God, and that makes it impossible for us to show love in any form.
That being said, there are many times when we struggle to love ourselves because there are so many conflicting messages coming at us, even from people who care about us. People mean well. They do. And for that reason, it’s more difficult to deal with them. They usually don’t intend to hurt the recipient, and they generally want what’s best, but in doing that, they can cause severe harm. Plus it takes a lot of strength to respond lovingly in that situation. Why, I hear you ask, should you bother to be loving? Well, because they are human and deserving of respect and as a Christian, I am commanded to love others.
The thing is, though, that those verses don’t make any reference to perfection. Our human nature does, though, because somewhere inside we think that our imperfect self is unworthy of being loved, and therefore our neighbour needs to be improved so we can love them. We have long lists of why others are not quite worthy; we talk about those people who don’t measure up. In reality, though, those lists are why we don’t love ourselves, and where we see our own weaknesses.
Let’s look at it this way. Each of us has a vision of what life should be. We are good people, who do the right things, so we deserve to have good things happen to us. When things don’t go as we want, then it’s the fault of others, who are working to harm us. Even when things are going well, we have a sense of obligation to maintain things — everything must be just so because that’s the best way. So we put pressure on ourselves to be the perfect housekeeper, employee, parent, child, manager, friend, etc. Then when we’re not (because of the mountain of articles pointing out our shortcomings) we envy those people who seem to have everything sorted out, and feel anger and frustration at ourselves because we don’t. So our ability to love ourselves crumbles, because we don’t measure up to the image of what we think should be.
I think that the reality is that we do love each other to the extent that we love ourselves. But because we hold up a fractured image of what is good, we can’t love properly. If I have fallen in love with a picture of a celebrity, and I work to show that image my devotion, then the real people around me will suffer, and my ability to communicate with them will fail. I think that I’m doing good and right things, and I don’t understand why things aren’t going how I want them to.
It’s worth considering whether we actually love ourselves, or an image of ourselves or whether we’re secretly self-loathing. Can we accept criticism of our actions and evaluate whether it’s valid? (Or is everyone else in the world “stupid” and “dumb”?) Can we welcome those who hold different viewpoints without feeling threatened? Can we rejoice in the diversity around us, or do we maintain a safe, static environment? If we can, then we can truly love others as we love our own, wildly divergent, sometimes confusing but always beautiful selves.
I will speak to the other verse in my next post.
But these verses speak not just of loving others, but loving them as we love ourselves. How much do we really love ourselves? How often do we look at ourselves and find something wrong, something that doesn’t measure up to an ideal? How many times do we tell ourselves, “You’re great. I love you,” and mean it? If we don’t love ourselves, then how can we love others? How can we not love ourselves and say, “God loves you.” God does. Make no mistake about that. But if we do not love ourselves, we close ourselves off from God, and that makes it impossible for us to show love in any form.
That being said, there are many times when we struggle to love ourselves because there are so many conflicting messages coming at us, even from people who care about us. People mean well. They do. And for that reason, it’s more difficult to deal with them. They usually don’t intend to hurt the recipient, and they generally want what’s best, but in doing that, they can cause severe harm. Plus it takes a lot of strength to respond lovingly in that situation. Why, I hear you ask, should you bother to be loving? Well, because they are human and deserving of respect and as a Christian, I am commanded to love others.
The thing is, though, that those verses don’t make any reference to perfection. Our human nature does, though, because somewhere inside we think that our imperfect self is unworthy of being loved, and therefore our neighbour needs to be improved so we can love them. We have long lists of why others are not quite worthy; we talk about those people who don’t measure up. In reality, though, those lists are why we don’t love ourselves, and where we see our own weaknesses.
Let’s look at it this way. Each of us has a vision of what life should be. We are good people, who do the right things, so we deserve to have good things happen to us. When things don’t go as we want, then it’s the fault of others, who are working to harm us. Even when things are going well, we have a sense of obligation to maintain things — everything must be just so because that’s the best way. So we put pressure on ourselves to be the perfect housekeeper, employee, parent, child, manager, friend, etc. Then when we’re not (because of the mountain of articles pointing out our shortcomings) we envy those people who seem to have everything sorted out, and feel anger and frustration at ourselves because we don’t. So our ability to love ourselves crumbles, because we don’t measure up to the image of what we think should be.
I think that the reality is that we do love each other to the extent that we love ourselves. But because we hold up a fractured image of what is good, we can’t love properly. If I have fallen in love with a picture of a celebrity, and I work to show that image my devotion, then the real people around me will suffer, and my ability to communicate with them will fail. I think that I’m doing good and right things, and I don’t understand why things aren’t going how I want them to.
It’s worth considering whether we actually love ourselves, or an image of ourselves or whether we’re secretly self-loathing. Can we accept criticism of our actions and evaluate whether it’s valid? (Or is everyone else in the world “stupid” and “dumb”?) Can we welcome those who hold different viewpoints without feeling threatened? Can we rejoice in the diversity around us, or do we maintain a safe, static environment? If we can, then we can truly love others as we love our own, wildly divergent, sometimes confusing but always beautiful selves.
I will speak to the other verse in my next post.
I always look at you as a strong and focus young woman. I admire you a lot. Love always my Cuz.
ReplyDeleteMay God guide you on next venture.😘😘