Week 6: Love is Not Rude

Love is not rude, or does not act unbecomingly. In other words it is proper, fitting and appropriate. Maybe this week will help us to understand what it means to ‘speak the truth in love’ (Ephesians 4:15). Speak the truth when it’s fitting or appropriate, not necessarily any time I want to spit out the harsh truth. Love in such a way that brings you and others honor, not shame. When I say something that hurts someone else (even though it may be true), it brings shame to my life. I look bad. I look judgmental. AND I make God look bad. But when I act truly loving, God honors me and I show God’s glory in my life.

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.

Pride Mountain

This week has made me tired. I have been open to God showing me pride in my own life, because pride tends to blind us to itself. So this week, I was asking God to show me where I struggled with pride but didn’t know it. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I am now officially blown away. I have some serious issues. I need help. I already knew this, trust me, but this week God showed me something that I have struggled with forever. It was already there, and I’ve even seen it before, but this week, God showed me a mountain in my life.

I’m too hard on myself. I have very high standards, and I’m constantly not living up to them. Since I’ve learned a little about grace in my walk, I’ve changed my standards…for everyone else. I can now give grace to others and not desire them to live up to my standards. This was really necessary, trust me, I love so much more deeply now that I’m not afraid of everyone doing everything imperfectly.

But it isn’t ending there. I’ve been in pain this week. I’ve been exhausted. Partly because I’ve been searching and listening and open to God. But mostly because I feel like pride is so deep and so huge that I’ll never stop dealing with it. It is a huge mountain towering in front of me, I see no way through it or around it.

The good part is that God says if I have faith even as small as a mustard seed, I can tell this mountain to throw itself into the sea, and it will.

Not by my might or power, but by God’s Spirit. His will, His grace, His salvation. He isn’t just saving me from death or hell, sometimes He’s also saving me from…me.

We sing a song in our church called Centuries that has a lyric, “What can man to do me?” It’s a beautiful song about resting in God and finding peace in Him alone. As we sang it today, I realized that the “man” in that line is really me. I am my own worst enemy. I am the mountain that stops me from being who I really am. I am the mountain that keeps me from pursuing and chasing the Wild Love I so desire.

But I am also the mustard seed. I can have faith that moves the mountain through Christ in me.

My new prayer is from another song we sing by Ember Days, “Oh, move the mountains, oh, part the seas, Lord. You healed the lepers when they called Your name. You heal the broken, so will You heal me?”

I don’t know how to walk in grace towards myself. It’s something my pride won’t allow me to do, because I like being right and I like being ‘above reproach’ and I want to live to a higher calling because I think that’s what God wants for me. But when I live this way based on pride, I’m missing the entire point of God’s love and grace to His creation.

It’s also not working. This is another realization that has really depressed me this week. Being really hard on myself, beating myself up, and constantly trying to force myself to be better is not actually working. Sure, I can bite my tongue once in a while, but I still say stupid things that hurt people. Sure, I can be a little more patient when there’s a stupid driver in front of me, but I still burst out at my children sometimes. Sure, I can make a list of ways that I’m thankful, but I still analyze my actions constantly and come out six feet under. I don’t want to live like that anymore, because it’s not helping me be a better person. I have to go back to the beginning: live in love, not fear. I have to believe that the more I love God and the more I understand His love for me, the better person I will become. “Seek first the Kingdom of God, and all else will be added to you.” If my desire is to do what God wants me to do, and to understand His love, and to pursue Him, He can help me to see the truth about myself, and to accept who I am - not trying to be more than I am, but resting in the fact that He Is.

We heard at church today that some mountains simply crumble and fall into the sea, but some mountains erode slowly during different storms. I’ve seen God erode my mountain during a storm, but I find myself building it back up again. After all, it’s familiar, it’s safe, I’m not sure what will happen when I can’t hide behind it anymore. But I think I am now determined to let the storms come and erode this mountain. I’m determined to destroy the tools and materials that help me build it back up. I’m determined to believe so strongly in God’s power and grace that He can remove this mountain. Even Pride Mountain.

The Opposite of Pride (Part 2)

Humility. For me, it may be one of the most complicated subjects in the bible. We know we need to be humble. But somewhere along the lines, we settle for something that looks and feels like humility, but really is not.  Part of it is the “victim” mentality that you may have read in the last post written by Heather Slagsvol. She gives such great insight into this “false humility” and I’m so grateful for her thoughts. It’s easier to seem humble when we’re constantly the victim, when bad things are always happening “to” us by others in all their pride and selfishness.

But then there’s this other part: the people who actually see themselves as unworthy or having no value. This is NOT true humility. But it’s certainly a tricky one because Philippians talks about Jesus’s humility which is SO CLOSE to ours that it’s no wonder we get it confused.

Here’s what it says:
“Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

Jesus is kind of looking at Himself as less than He really is here, right? He’s thinking about others as more important than himself (He’s Jesus, so this is obviously not true in the grand scheme of things). He’s not looking at Himself as equal to God (even though He was God in the flesh), but He emptied Himself (He became nothing) even to the point of being a lowly bond-servant (or slave). This is so incredible, because in that time a bond-servant was someone who was indebted to their master. Jesus literally became a slave to all of those that He loved.

This is a struggle for us, so imagine the struggle it was for the Jews, who were waiting for a mighty and powerful King to come and set everything right. Instead, Jesus came as a slave to all mankind, taking on their debts as His own and giving them everything, even to the point of death.

This is humility.

Doesn’t it seem like if we just keep looking down on ourselves and saying we’re nothing and constantly serving that we will be truly humble?

Somehow, this doesn’t add up. There’s more here than just the actions of humility. We also have to look at His heart. Jesus did all of these things because HE TRULY LOVED. He was lowly and humble because He knew the bigger picture, He knew what He had to do to draw us back to Him.

When I’m “humble”, looking down on myself, or wearing myself thin in my servitude to others, I have to look at myself and ask, “WHY?” Why am I doing it? Am I doing this so that others will lift me back up? Am I doing it to prove my worth by my work or deeds? Am I doing it because I want others to love me? Am I doing it because it’s the right thing to do?

It must be more than that. My humility, my laying down my life for someone else, my thinking of others as more highly than myself, MUST originate in love. It must NOT originate from sense of duty or thoughts of “I SHOULD”. True humility can only work because I honestly and fully LOVE the Savior of my soul and all the other children He’s created. If my heart begins with love, I believe I can be truly humble, not just walking in some ‘substitute humility’ that exhausts and cripples me.

A Friend's Take on Pride

By Heather Slagsvol. Posted with permission. 

Week 5: Pride (and some boasting, too)

The theme of this week has been weighing on my heart since JJ introduced it, which is funny because I felt like pride was one of the last things I struggled with (hmm…maybe that should have been an instant heads up). I know that I don’t boast about talents or abilities…wait….I THOUGHT I didn’t boast about talents and abilities because I was looking at it from the wrong angle, but today I feel like God revealed something to me about myself. Let me try to walk you through the thought process I had today.

Something happened to me that occurs on a daily basis. I thought that someone had responded to me in a way that was harsher or less sensitive than I would have liked. Yes, this literally happens to me every day. Today was different though, because almost immediately instead of thinking, “Why are people always so mean to me?” I thought, “Why do I always take things the wrong way?” and I immediately thought about 15 Weeks to Love, and what JJ had introduced about pride. So, I got out my computer and looked up the definition of pride. I really thought I knew what it meant, but I wanted to see if there was anything in there that I had missed. The definition that first popped up said, “a dignified or becoming sense of what is due to oneself or one’s position and character.” Simple enough. But that word “becoming” kept sticking out to me. While I also know what it means, I decided to look that word up too to see if anything new stuck out. “Becoming: to give a pleasing effect.” There it is. “To give a pleasing effect”.  It immediately hit me, let me explain….

I am ALWAYS taking things the wrong way. ALWAYS. Too short of a response, an honest answer, something less than I had expected…something that doesn’t give me a “pleasing effect”…

Could it be pride that causes me to think I deserve a specific response from people? I think I actually believe that people constantly mistreat me or take advantage of me on purpose, that I am unappreciated or not respected enough. But in all honesty, if I really think about it, I have only been TRULY treated that way a few times in my life. I am really good at making myself the victim in any situation. I say a nasty thing about someone, and instantly, I blame them. “Well, they are always doing 'this or that' to me”. “Well, I let it bubble up for too long, they are just so MEAN!” I always try to be the innocent one. ALWAYS. I think I believe that I deserve a certain sort of treatment from people...(“a sense of what is DUE to one’s self”). If that’s not pride I don’t know what is.

Since pride is directly related to boasting I decided to go back to last week’s blog entry about it. Oh man. JJ wrote about “boasting in our weaknesses”. There it is. I think that I am “weak” and sweet, and kind, and nice, and blah blah blah, and while I really do try to practice those character traits, I think I have convinced myself that I am never the opposite of those things. It sounds so unbecoming when I say it out loud.

Here are some of my actual go-to statements:
“I always try so hard to be nice….”
“I’m not saying I want or need something in return from them, but….”
“I just feel like we do so much, but….”
“It just seems like we are so unappreciated…..”
(I say “we” because I often suck my poor husband into my crazy.)

All of these statements are my natural defenses, my immediate responses...and they reek of pride and false humility.

Who do I think I am? Jesus?

I am not perfect.
Sometimes I am mean.
I say things about other people that I shouldn’t.
I judge.
I blame others when I respond the wrong way.
I’m not always nice…
or kind…..

….Wow. It really feels good to say those things. I know who I aim to be. And I am not trying to beat myself down or condemn myself for the things I do wrong, because I don’t think that’s right either. But I finally feel like this MAJOR part of my life is starting to make sense. I can only be all the things I want to be through Jesus anyway. I need to step back and take responsibility for my own actions and stop blaming others. I also need to stop thinking that I deserve a specific sort of treatment from people…

I do struggle with pride.

By Heather Slagsvol. Posted with permission.

Week 5: Love is Not Proud

I’m seeing three different translations with three different words: proud, arrogant, and rude.  So what does this verse really mean?

The Greek word here means to be puffed up, to bear one’s self loftily.  I’m beginning to see a pattern. These love attributes keep coming down to one thing: Not Self. This study in love is continually showing me that I’m not to focus on myself but instead be concerned with others. Pride is thinking about myself, more highly than I should, and more often than I should. Love is thinking about others, how to serve more, how to help better, how to love fully. Love is also surrendering to God and allowing Him to show me who I am, rather than trying to figure it out in my own strength.

Often times pride stems from insecurity, just like boasting (see Week 4). Because I’m beaten down or have a low self-esteem, I will tend to exaggerate my strengths until it becomes annoying how wonderful I think I am. Some people are even completely blind to their pride, not realizing that their talents are not actually talents at all. Have you ever watched the American Idol try-outs? These people are so blind. They are trying out on American Idol, which means they think they are one of the top singers in the country! Some of them are literally tone-deaf, meaning they can’t even tell which note they are singing. I’m sorry, but no matter how many times your mom told you that you were awesome, I can’t help but wonder if there is some pride in there somewhere, blinding you to the truth.

Which leads me to my next point. We all have some blind spots, don’t we?

I’m absolutely certain there is something in my life that I carry around in pride that I shouldn’t. This week, I’m praying that God will show me. I’m praying that He’ll open my eyes, and show me a weakness I may be overlooking. It might hurt. A lot. Or maybe God will start showing me how much He loves me, and then it won’t hurt so bad when He tells me something I should have already known. He’s good like that.

You know what humbles me at least once a month? Something stupid I said. I say the dumbest things. I say things that are so mean, so hurtful, so idiotic. I usually don’t mean it the way I said it, I just come off really bad. In my head, it sounds like a totally normal and reasonable thing to say, (and maybe kind of funny) but then when it’s out loud, I realize I have offended someone. In high school, this was a talent. I got a lot of laughs from constantly spewing out mean and funny things. As an adult, it’s completely humbling. I wish I didn’t say things that made me want to punch myself in the face. I wish I didn’t say things that made me have to go to that person and apologize and hope they don’t hate me forever. I love people, and I’m trying to show everyone that love, but I’m constantly failing miserably. Why does this keep happening?

Maybe God is trying to get to something in me. Maybe this is my blind spot. I don’t fully understand what it is yet. But as we ask God to speak to us and show us our pride, be open to seeing patterns of pain in your own life. If you hear yourself saying, “Why does this keep happening to me?” you may want to look at your heart…you might find out it’s your own fault. And I bet that pride is blinding you to seeing the truth.

Pride is good at that.

But love is good at setting us free and bringing us to the truth. Thank God that love is also patient, so it never tires of trying to set us free and bring us into the truth, even when we keep ignoring it.

Thank God for Love, to combat all our weaknesses, stupidity, and pride.