Choose Love
Your kindness will reward you,
but your cruelty will destroy you. Proverbs 11:17
Many times, I have written about my positive and negative experiences on social media. Whenever I have had to engage in conversation with people regardless of whether I know them well or not, I pray I have done so in a manner that has represented who God is. This is important in lieu of some of the things uncovered about how Facebook appears to have been driven to amplify one destructive concept: hate. I can relate to this having been in numerous and often fruitless debates online that occupied time that would have been better suited to either helping others or being engaged with family and friends. But there was something else I found. Some of the people I have grown closest to are those who I often disagree with on many topics. How is that possible? Part of it I hope is that I truly represent those things that God would want me to. Here is the part and this is what allowed me to break through many barriers. I always choose to love. Not hate. There. It is really that simple … to say it, but to practice it is a whole different animal because sometime our words and feelings get in the way. There’s a reason the Bible says, “And among all the parts of the body, the tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of wickedness, corrupting your entire body. It can set your whole life on fire, for it is set on fire by hell itself.” (James 3:6) But whether we realize it or not, we still have a choice. We can choose to amplify those things that represent God’s love or focus on those things that may make us feel good but do not focus God.
Choosing to love is necessary in a Christ-like journey. In reading Proverbs, I came across this gem. No one would disagree that it is better to be kind than to be cruel. Yet somehow, this gets lost in the shuffle. A survey earlier this year said, “a good person should be kind (49%), giving (45%), and friendly (41%) — but when asked to list which qualities they wished to have, respondents wanted to be more successful (38%) over anything else, even happiness (21%).” See the disconnect here? This feels like another example of what God wants versus what we want. God gives us this thing called love, and Paul defines it perfectly:
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Note the very first part alludes to the word ‘kind.’ But the problem is we focus on our own ‘stuff,’ and we hate to give that up. What stuff? There’s the physical stuff (property, possessions) and the mental stuff (success, self-worth, being right). The story of the rich man in Mark 10 further underlines what we are often faced with. I imagined my being in front of Jesus in this exchange:
“Looking at the man, Jesus felt genuine love for him. “There is still one thing you haven’t done,” he told him. “Go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
At this the man’s face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.
Personally, I struggle giving stuff up to God because I like my stuff. However, we must remember that even our stuff is not truly ours. It’s God’s. It takes a lot of work to get to a place where we truly surrender everything to God. Along those lines, love requires intentional practice. It pushes us to say, “What does God want from me,” instead of, “What gets my way?” Practices like asking yourself that question prior to any discussion, being conscious of what types of media you take in, and ’30 day challenges’ that push you to do one act of love toward others help because it gives us time to pause and reflect on what matters: our relationship with God. God does not say to not enjoy the stuff you have. God would say to remember who provided for you in the first place and be generous and show love to others as He has been and shown to you.
Choosing love is not an easy road to follow. Our sinful nature pushes its agenda against this, which explains why we are drawn toward hate so easily. But Jesus showed himself to be a perfect example of love in His sacrifice for us. The key is to be honest about what you are putting out in the world. So, if you struggle with showing kindness as of late, start focusing on the love God has shown you. Then, push out more love and kindness toward those around you. That is how we grow to be more like Christ. Are you conscious of those things that subtly foster hate more than love? Who do you dislike that you can exhibit more kindness to? My prayer is that we can fight through the subtle hatred we create ourselves and simply make the choice to love as God would ask of us. Amen.
Written by Kent Williams for The Hope Fellowship