After the first communion service, Jesus gave His disciples the new commandment which of course is only new to us in that it has been forgotten (Leviticus 19:18, 34). “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34, 35). Even though in English we only have one word for love we all understand there are different kinds of love. When I say I love my parents you know it is a different love than when I say I love my husband which is still different from I love my cat or even I love tacos! When I happen to get a bad taco… maybe the beans were bad but I didn’t pay enough attention and maybe I got sick later. Would I still love tacos? Similarly if my cat does something I don’t like. Maybe she bites me for seemingly no reason, would I still love her?
In my life, I seem to have an easier time loving tacos and cats than people. Why? Well tacos aren’t alive. They might hurt me but they didn’t mean to, there wasn’t any kind of thought on their part. The cat is a bit different as she is alive but she is just an animal. She’s not a person with thoughts and words like we have. I can’t rationalize with her. So when someone hurts me or someone else or even themselves I am less likely to feel like loving them because I believe they are responsible for their own actions. Sometimes I do try to justify why they did what they did. This of course is not God’s way. We do not NEED to rationalize what people do (Matthew 7:1). We don’t have to understand what they do, we don’t have to agree with them, we don’t even have to like them, but we do need to love them with Godly love. As irrational as it might sound I would equate this love to the love I have for my cat. She never has my best interest in mind. She is only concerned with herself and has no desire for self-improvement. She does things I don’t like and maybe even hurts me which leads me to sometimes change how I act around her. But I still love her. There are toxic people in this world and while we might have to deal with them and we must love them by seeing them through God’s eyes, that doesn’t mean we have to be best friends or even be near them if it is too dangerous.
The hardest people I think to love are the ones that “seem” to be interested in changing their lives but instead have used that appearance to secure some kind of benefit with no desire to change. They may be in need of different things whether financially or physically and feel entitled to help due to the decisions they continue to make which are detrimental to their own health and well-being. Do you remember several weeks ago I wrote about a person I had once tried to have Bible studies with and it ended because it was obvious that this person was only interested in the studies when they thought I would then do things for them. (And the more I talk to other people about their experiences the more often I realize this kind of thing happens.) To recap, this person had called and left me a voicemail on a Saturday afternoon asking me to call them back that it was important about the Bible “and stuff.” I didn’t call them back and later that week I found out that they thought someone had broken into their apartment and stolen their Bible. “Nothing else was stolen?” I asked. Nope nothing else. Even me, the most gullible person you’ll probably find, could not believe someone would break in to steal a Bible (and there was no other physical evidence of a break-in). This person has simply lost the Bible as has happened with many other things. They were not calling to ask for additional studies nor to see if I had another Bible they could have. They were just upset thinking someone would take something that was theirs.
Almost every time I see this person they ask me to do something for them. While I disagree with how they are living their life, I do still care about them. I also know if given the chance they will fill up my entire day with errands for them and I will never get any work done. My solution so far has been to say that I can help them but not until I get off of work at 5pm. This person doesn’t work; they have nowhere else to be unless they have a doctor appointment and there is a free bus that will take people from Staunton to the hospital and back. But this person is impatient, and never able to give me a good reason why they need what they need RIGHT NOW. Needless to say 99% of the time they can’t wait for me to get off of work to help them. Just because you love someone doesn’t mean you don’t have to set boundaries and stick to them. It is not our job to, nor can we, force people to change. That must be the work of the Holy Spirit. And only the Holy Spirit can help us to love others as God would have us to love them. “But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same” (Luke 6:33, 34).