Love and Pain

For days, I have been bothered about my lack of passion for the lost. It seems that the familiarity of seeing problematic people everywhere has desensitized me. Or I simply lack compassion. It is a shame to say that I am leading young people and struggling to impart something I lack. Knowing what is needed is often never enough. Something has to happen, something must be done.

I prayed and asked for the Lord's heart. I asked Him to teach me to love how He loves. I'm not sure if I know what I asked but I sincerely want it. I figured out it's the only way I can walk my Christian life.

God answers prayers. I found myself in a situation requiring every ounce of love in me. What I learned, my own strength is not enough. Human love is never enough. Somehow, selfishness is hard to get rid off. I even more realized that only God's love works. My love is imperfect but His love is perfect.

My pastor once said, we get hurt because we love deeply. I thought it was just a quote. But now, I had some enlightenment. I'm so sure he formulated those words out of experience. You see, it is different to get hurt for the reason that one feels unloved and misunderstood (probably how we sometimes feel with our parents). It is another thing to get hurt because you love deeply (probably how our parents feel).

Jesus is described as man of sorrow, a man acquainted with grief. Is it partly because He loves deeply? Maybe. I am incapable of fully comprehending God’s pain. Yes, God is love and because he loves deeply and perfectly, I believe God feels pain, too. Maybe not in a human sense but He grieves because of the fact that he has expressed the greatest love for all and yet we throw away that love (Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends, John 15:13). I always believed that God hates sin so much because it separates us from Him.  I had a little taste of that pain. A little compared to God’s pain but too much for me.  It hurt a lot.  I’m glad I’m not God.

As for me, I must go on loving.  I’m talking about true love—willing the highest good of a person.  That takes a lot of God’s love in us. So let God’s will be done in my life. Continue to teach me Lord and make my heart like yours.

Love takes everything that comes without giving up. Love believes all things. Love hopes for all things. Love keeps on in all things (1 Cor. 13:7).

 **Human love is always selfish. If we are not pleasing God, we are pleasing ourselves. God hates the middle zone, gray areas, mediocrity. It’s either we obey Him or we sin. If we say we love God, we will obey Him.  And we will dare to listen what His will for us is, not just depend on what we think is right or okay.