Last night I was studying the original Greek for this text and looking up verses trying to find another angle to write about. The best biblical translation I found was “is not easily provoked”. But more in depth study brought me to an interesting definition for this Greek word “provoke”. It has more feeling to it than just being annoyed or impatient. The word itself was defined like this: to arouse anger, provoke, irritate, to incite ("jab") someone and stimulate their feelings, become emotionally provoked (upset, roused to anger), getting to someone, spurring someone to action.
Spurring someone to action. Our anger does spur us into action, doesn’t it? Anger can make us want to punch something, yell loudly, leave, or if you're like me, you’ll cry (and maybe do those other things too.)
I wrote down all the things I studied, but then walked away and asked God to give me some kind of revelation about what it means that Love is Not Easily Angered. Here’s what happened:
I had one of those dreams that was so intense I still believed it to be true even after I woke up. In my dream, my husband was being a total jerk. My children and I were being attacked and instead of helping us, he acted like I was overreacting. We kept fighting and fighting and he was just so obviously wrong. I was furious. I had every right to be. I might have even punched him in the face. I at least thought about it. I started wondering what was wrong with him. Eventually, I took our kids and left, and told him I didn’t want to hear from him until he was ready to apologize.
At this point I half woke up. I was so angry with him because it felt so real, I refused to roll over to hug him and let the relief of reality pour in. I decided to stay angry, and stay where I was in bed with my back to him. Somehow I was back in the dream, right where I had left him, and the ground began to make metallic clinking sounds. I looked down to see what it was, and realized... I was in chains.
God spoke immediately to my heart: “THIS IS THE RESULT OF CHOOSING ANGER.”
WHOA. I had every right to be angry, believe me, if I went into the details of the dream, you would agree. I was in the right. I could even go so far as to say I was “righteous.” My righteous anger was in full gear, protecting my children and everything that was good in the world. But when I decided to WALK in anger, instead of love, I found myself immediately in chains.
The bible says, “in your anger, do not sin.” (Ephesians 4:26) The actual emotion of anger itself is not a sin. It’s okay to be mad. It’s okay to be angry when someone hurts you. Even Jesus was angry a few times. But what are you going to do with it? You have a choice to make, to act in your anger and pain, or to act in Love. God allows us this choice, because without choice, there would be no true love. If we choose incorrectly, we set out to punish the person who caused our pain, but instead, we punish ourselves. We lock ourselves into chains that immobilize us and keep us living in fear, far from love.
I do NOT want to live in chains. The good news is that God doesn’t want me to either.
He’s rooting for me. He’s rooting for you. He’s there to show us how to walk in Love, even when we’re hurt and angry.
This is tough. It goes against our human nature. There is a part of us that doesn’t want to be taken advantage of, or to let things go, or to forgive. We believe that if we do, we’ll be teaching people they can constantly sin against us. If someone hurts me, I have to punish them, rebuke them, convict them so that they learn not to do it anymore. We fear that if we love people the way God calls us to, our lives will be worse and we’ll be in constant pain. So we do not love, because…we fear those things.
The reason we believe this is because, I think, it’s partly true. BUT God calls us to walk this way anyway. Think about it. Jesus could have lived differently on earth. He could have followed the law like the Pharisees instead of following the Love of the Father. But He chose love. He understood the HEART of the law, because He understood the Father, and He walked according to what the law was actually about...Love. This drove the religious people crazy. He chose Love, so He suffered and died for it.
It’s possible that some of our choosing Love may actually cause us pain. We may suffer for it. But I’m certain in the New Testament Jesus says a few times that we will need to take up our own cross. He promises some tough stuff for those who walk in the truth, doesn’t He?
The other side of it is that, this fear isn’t based entirely on truth. We can not “convict” other people for the pain they cause us. Only the Holy Spirit can convict a heart. When we think we’re “convicting” or “helping”, usually we’re rebuking and judging. Mostly, this pushes someone farther away, because we’re not being loving, and they know it. So in actuality, the only way to stop this vicious cycle is by loving someone, praying for them, and allowing the Holy Spirit to do the work in their hearts that will show them how to love better. Eventually they may love you in such a way that it doesn’t hurt anymore.
We are afraid that when the bible says "Love COVERS sin" (also called grace), it means that "Love ACCEPTS sin" (also called tolerance), but this is NOT the case. Accepting sin and saying it's okay based on a “tolerance” outlook is not the same as covering sin based in love. We’ll talk more about this next week.
We’ve talked about fear. We know we need to choose to live in love and not fear. James gave us a really great way to walk in this when he said in his letter, “perfect love casts out all fear.” If I take up my cross, and give up all my “rights” and start walking in love, my fear of being hurt and taken advantage of will start to fade away. If I really walk in love, I won’t be able to walk in fear. I’ll have to let it all go, because I’ve chosen the Way of Love, and Love casts out fear. Then, when I'm really loving God and those around me, I might encourage them to do the same.
**I feel the need to point out that if you're in an abusive situation, I'm not encouraging you to cover someone else's sin to the point of your physical detriment. You can love and give grace from a distance when safety is at stake.**
Walking in love one week at a time.
Showing posts with label love is a choice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love is a choice. Show all posts
7/30/14
7/17/14
Week 6: Love is Not Rude
Love does not seek to cause problems or to belittle others. Love chooses appropriate actions and responses that HELP others. I LOVE the word chooses. Love is a choice. Love is not how we feel (although sometimes we do feel love) but love goes deeper. Love is a constant choosing to love another person, which is why we make vows on our wedding day. We are vowing to love our spouse even when we don’t feel love towards them. We are vowing to make the choices that love, protect, honor, and encourage our spouse even when they don’t deserve it. We are vowing that we will make the CHOICE to love, in richer or poorer, sickness or health, or whatever else life throws our way.
The problem I find with rudeness or improper behavior is that it changes culturally and generationally. Something that is inappropriate in Sweden may be culturally normal here. Something that would have caused gasps 50 years ago may be completely acceptable now. So by what basis do we judge our propriety?
Like every other aspect of love, I am learning that it seems to be a matter of the heart. It doesn’t seem to necessarily be about the action, but more about the motive behind the action. For instance the Pharisees followed every law and were completely obedient, but Jesus said their hearts were far from God. He called them a brood of vipers! Their actions were honorable, but their hearts were proud. They weren’t following the law out of their love for God or others, they were following the law because they thought they were better than everyone else and more deserving of honor. This type of heart does not put you in good-standing with God. He seems more concerned with our motives: “People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." 1 Samuel 16:7
I’m saying all this because, to me, it directly relates to understanding the heart of “Love is not rude.” I might be rude unintentionally in another culture, simply because of my lack of knowledge about that culture. That doesn’t mean I have been unloving. If someone teaches me what is rude and I do it anyway, that is unloving.
I think we can look at it like this. Have you ever heard yourself or someone else say, “I don’t mean to be rude but…” or following up an inappropriate statement with “no offense!” Sometimes we KNOW we’re being rude. Sometimes we know something is inappropriate but we do it anyway. Why? What is our motive? We have to look at the heart. Am I trying to impress you? Am I trying to get you to think I’m funny? Am I being too honest because I actually want to point our your flaws and puff myself up? Am I trying to draw attention to myself?
This week, as I think about behavior that is unbecoming, inappropriate or rude, I want to look at my heart. I want God to show me when I’m thinking of myself more than others. I want to learn how to be polite, not because I want to be a better person, but because I want to LOVE more. I want to learn how to love, and how to exude Jesus and the Love of my Father so that it is attractive to others. I think the point here is that being rude or inappropriate is really unattractive, and DOES NOT bring others into the Love of Christ. It turns them AWAY from you, and the miracle of the Good News that you carry every day. We want to draw people in to this Gift, this Love, not turn them away or put a bad taste in their mouth...which is exactly what Rudeness does.
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