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stretch your love...
by mike pilavachi
A good friend of mine, really challenged me recently. He pointed out the fact that there’s a certain kind of person I surround myself with and give opportunity to. I like people who are humble, modest, meek, gentle and kind; and there’s nothing wrong with that I thought.
“But what about people who are different?” My friend asked.
“What about those with strong opinions, those who push themselves forward? Aren’t you dismissing a whole personality type?”
I began to realise that the kind of people I shied away from – the loud mouths, the arrogant people, the ones who like the sound of their own voice – all reminded me of me.
It is me I don’t like and I have been projecting that on to anyone who shares those personality traits.
My friend didn't stop there:
“Don’t you think that sometimes those people who may be slightly irritating to you, may have a whole lot to give? Couldn’t it be insecurity or pain that’s making them act in ways you don’t like? Thank goodness you weren’t my youth worker when I became a Christian. I was so insecure that I was one of those pushy and annoying people but it was only because of my lack of confidence. I’m so glad my youth leaders were kind and welcomed me; they didn’t write me off instead they trusted God to deal with me as I went.”
That really hit home.
God has been challenging me ever since about what it really means to love people. We know from Paul’s famous words to the Corinthians that without love we are nothing, we have nothing, it’s all pointless and we’re just making a noise. He tells us we can move mountains with our faith, even raise the dead, but unless we love we’ve missed the point. And I’d been missing the point.
Our defining characteristic as Christians should be love. I’d been loving people who were easy to love but as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, what credit is that to me? Anyone can do that. Those who don’t know Jesus love their friends and the people around them who are loveable. What God calls us to do as his followers is to enlarge our hearts and love the people we don’t easily get on with. That’s what sets us apart.
And the reality is we can’t afford to write people off. It could be that the kid in our youth group, the one who is really annoying and loud, may be full of amazing qualities. It can feel natural to step back from those people who annoy us and steer clear of them when we can, but we have to see that it may just be that they’re struggling and in pain and that is what makes them difficult to be around.
Everyone has a lot to offer and everyone needs to be loved, regardless of what attitudes and characteristics they display on the outside.
Jesus didn’t shy away from difficult people; he went to those in pain. He didn’t seek out the nice, easy-to-love society people – he hung around with the drunks, the gluttons, the prostitutes, the sinners. And they were transformed through their encounters with him.
If Jesus had stayed within his comfort zone, he’d never have left heaven. If he’d only loved the nice people, where would any of us be?
Real love, like that Jesus demonstrated, involves sacrifice and it involves suffering. The challenge for us is to love like that; to see and love people as they are not just as we would like them to be. We must choose to accept them and go through the pain and sacrifice of having relationship with them.
That is what Jesus did. That is what Paul was getting at when he said we can do pretty much anything we like, achieve all manner of great things, but it we don’t have love, we have nothing.
That is what is meant to be our defining characteristic as Christians. It’s not meant to be about having the best evangelism strategy, the biggest plans for church growth, the most power, the highest intelligence; we’re meant to love like Jesus loved and to grow in that love until the day we go to be with him.
I heard a fantastic quote recently:
“Perception without love is sin”.
What does that mean? If we see one another’s stuff and we don’t love, then what happens is that we judge. We condemn people instead. We focus on the bad stuff and push them away.
We’ve all done it. But the point is, if we want to stand out as people who know and belong to Jesus we have to choose to love even those who we don’t like. We have to love those who irritate us, those who remind us of our own bad qualities, those who get up our noses. We need to be perceptive but immerse that perception in love.
Our relationships should be stretching our capacity to love. We must be asking ourselves: if none of our relationships involve sacrifice and pain then are we really loving in the same way that Jesus did?
About the author
Mike heads up all things Soul Survivor, including our church in Watford. He's in his middle ages, likes cooking, writes a few books and pretends to support Manchester United. A version of this article appeared in Youthwork Magazine a while ago, so we're thankful to them for letting us use it!
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