A couple weeks ago I shared that while I
recently fixed my neighbor’s fence, I still needed prayers about my learning to
enjoy doing so.
Somebody took up that prayer challenge,
because when I went back to my house a week later, I discovered that the sidewalk
on my side of the fence had been carefully weeded. Somebody blessed me in a far bigger way than
I had blessed my neighbor!
This
is the secret to freely loving others. Rather than feeling cheated, we experience ourselves
as a recipient of even greater love. Jesus says that he who thinks he “has been forgiven little, loves little."
But the person, forgiven much, loves much.
“We love because he first loved us.”
The problem is that a lot of us have not
known anything but counterfeit love. In Charlotte
Bronte’s novel, Jane Eyre, the
religious leaders of a school for orphans so mistreat orphan Jane that it’s obvious
they don’t care about Jane as much as they do about appearing benevolent in
front of potential donors. Real love
isn’t attention seeking, like this. Love is not a come on. It’s not always a fundraiser. It doesn’t want anything in return. Love weeds our yard anonymously.
The
story of our age is one of loved-starved people trying to be nice in order to
get other love-starved people to love them. But this isn’t love. It’s manipulation. The genius of Bronte’s novel is that it shows
those of us, who have been scarred by manipulation, that we are not respecting
ourselves by continuing to seek love in the wrong places. We can be filled up by God’s love so we escape
neediness and stop making manipulative demands of already depleted people.
We find love from others when we quit
demanding it. We find our lives by secretly
giving them away. Filled with Christ, we enjoy mending others, asking nothing
in return. It’s then that it is far more
likely we will find ourselves married to the person who secretly weeds our
sidewalk for no reason other than they love us.
