Love

 "'When they look, they won't really see. When they hear, they won't understand.' This is the meaning of the parable. The seeds that fell on the footpath represent those who hear the message, only to have the devil come and take it away from their hearts and prevent them from being saved.'" Jesus Luke 8:9-12

  Love, at its best, challenges us to be better than we are. That's what Jesus does time and again. He offers a better, a different way of living. Sometimes the lines in the sand Jesus drew involved words. But like I said yesterday, change requires permission to exist. 

  If we close our hearts to change, to doing things differently, nothing changes. We stay stuck in the current situation, destined to repeat the same things over and over again. Which is exactly where a narcissist wants us.

  Unless the Lord opens the eyes of our heart.

  Love. Four letters that contain the most complex emotional part of being human.

  So what did I think love was before today?

  I thought love meant staying small. Love meant accepting the cage and living life according to the bars that formed it. My life was defined by offering grace, making allowances, and accepting a role of servitude. It also meant giving permission to be treated badly, swallowing the hurts, and ignoring the injustice because love means being nice, being the bigger person. Love meant adapting my behaviour to meet the needs of the moment: placating anger, massaging an ego, propping up weakness...and turning a blind eye to it all.

  I didn't know there was any other way to love.

  That, and who was I really serving?

  It wasn't Jesus.

  I was exactly where the enemy wanted me to stay.

  he has had enough of my 61 years.

  Love doesn't ask us to stay under the power of evil. In fact, it is our God given right to draw our own lines in the sand. I think of Gandalf in Lord of the Rings when he fought the fiery beast on the bridge. "You shall not pass!" Maybe I need to get myself a staff.

  Is that what You mean, Lord, when we say the 23 Psalm? "Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me."

  His rod is discipline. His staff, a weapon formed by words. "You, the enemy, shall not pass!"

 

  AMEN!