The One About Love.

Happy Valentine's Day! So many people hate on this day because they're single, or because they believe that it's just another day but over the past couple of years I've decided that Valentine's Day is so much more than cringey couple stuff. It's an awesome opportunity to express how much you appreciate and value someone. If they ask you why you're getting all sentimental, you can say "it's Valentine's Day and I wanted to appreciate you." Too often we think that love is all about romantic relationships and that's it. But love is so much more; we love our parents, we love our friends, we love our siblings, we love the people that we don't like. Wait. Did I really just say that we love the people we don't like? Yup, you heard me. 

We are called to love all people.

That is something that I've been struggling with a lot recently. There are a couple of people in my life who I just find so hard to love. I often catch myself thinking 'God, are you suuure you're asking me to love this person?' Yes. He is. 1 John 4:19 tells us that "we love because He first loved us". Those seven words hit me like a ton of bricks yesterday when I Googled "Bible verses about love". God chose to love us; He sent His Son to die for us. Who are we to say 'nah, I don't feel like loving so-and-so today"? Where would we be if Jesus had that attitude? We are called to emulate the character of Christ, therefore we must love others as He has loved us.

Now, I'm one of those people who likes to believe that God has a sense of humor. Today is Valentine's Day, and God is teaching me about love. How comical. When God is teaching me something, He tends to make that very evident to me through various examples everywhere I go. Last night He put a certain person almost everywhere that I went. He led me to a blog post that talked about unconditional love. Today the Bible verse of the day on YouVersion is John 15:13 which says, "greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." I got to church early this morning and I was taking a look at the bulletin and noticed that the verse that my pastor was preaching on this morning was 1 John 4:19; there it was again!

I have a few options when God teaches me things. I can listen to Him, take to heart what He says, and then act on it. I can pray about it, but not do anything because I feel like God will do all of the work for me. I can also just ignore everything that God is impressing on my heart. I'm generally more inclined to lean towards the second option.

I've been struggling to love a couple of certain people for awhile now and this morning I was convicted of the fact that while I'm praying about loving those people, and I'm praying for those people, which by the way is hard to do, I'm not actually loving them. I still get really mad whenever they come around, I dwell on the things that they've done to hurt me instead of reflecting on their positive character qualities, I compare the nature of my relationship with them to the relationships that others around me have with them. Someone told me this past week that we are called to love people, but we don't necessarily have to like them. That concept has always baffled me, but I'm finding that it makes a little bit more sense than I initially thought. I can love these people because God has commanded it:

"My command to you is this: Love each other as I have loved you." {John 15:12}

But I don't have to like these people. I need to treat them with love and grace, kindness and respect, but I don't have to hang out with them all the time and expect to be their best friend. 

One more nugget of wisdom that I am constantly reminding myself of when God is teaching me something is this; tears are okay. For some reason I used to think that if I was crying about a situation then clearly it was too hard for me to fix it, give it up, or do whatever needed to be done. But I'm learning that tears are healthy and they show that I'm human and I struggle to do what I know I need to do. They also prove to me that I'm weak and I must rely on God's strength to do what I deem to be impossible.

On this Valentine's Day (and every other day for that matter), let's remember how important it is for us to show love. Not just to a significant other. God has called us to love everyone.