What is love...baby don't hurt me!!!!

I have been very bad. I have to let you know a little secret about me. I put everything in my phone. As a matter of fact, if it isn't in my phone, then it probably doesn't get remembered unless it is a routine event that happens or my beautiful wife remembers it for me. As a matter of fact...every week I get an update that says, "UPDATE BLOG". I mean every week! And yet this is my first blog in months!!! I am very ashamed. (Though I am not sure anyone is listening anyway.) So, my first order of business is to say, "I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while." Confession is good for the soul...

I work with some amazing families at church. I mean totally amazing. I have experienced families come around each other in time of need, in times of celebration, and times of sorrow. That is what it's all about. Love. Loving one another. Now I am basing this on the John 13 kinda love. The love that means I will help my brother when they need it. That means giving them conversations when they need to be changed a bit or an "iron sharpening iron" position. The problem we get hung up with from time to time is that we don't truly "love" the way we need too. There are some out there that have their own opinions on how to "love" each other. They do it by chastising in the name of the Lord without any dose of love. For me to love my daughter the way I need to, I must correct her bad behavior. I need make sure she knows what she did wrong, why it is wrong, and how does she not fall back into that again. Because I love her and care about her future...this is a non-negotiable.

Love doesn't mean that we let someone off the hook, but it also doesn't mean we "discipline" or correct out of anger or to make someone look less then they are in God's eyes. I think what would help us with "loving one another" would be to check the scope in which we want to discuss behaviors or issues with someone. Questions like, "Is this person ready for my comments?" This can be tricky, because, I am sure there isn't a great time to be disciplined, but if I were to discipline my baby girl in the midst of a tantrum, she isn't going to understand what it is I have to say. Typically, I remove her from the situation...let her calm down...and then I will talk to her. We have a tendency to try to drop correction or rebuke when the other person is having a difficult time with something. Or they are hurting over something else. Let me be clear, this doesn't mean we don't talk at all, this just means we frame the conversation with all that in mind. Questions like, "What's been going on lately?" can help defuse things before they go to far.

Love also doesn't mean I am rebuking someone to make them look bad so that I look good. Many times I feel like we have believers on different levels with their faith. Maybe they are stunted in one spot, or maybe they are just starting to get it. Either way, correcting someone that may not understand something needs to be scoped with that in mind. Or what if they aren't a believer at all? What if they are being rebuked and they aren't a believer. Listen to what the Gospel of John records in chapter 8, "

2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

What I see in this passage is a man who wants to make a long standing impact as upposed to a threat that won't mean anything. Now we don't know what happened to this lady, but we do know that God has used this verse to help shape us with other situations. I coach football and am around players all the time that use less then perfect language. Now, I could go off and thump them with my Bible or I can walk to them and ask them not to use that language around me. If they aren't a believer, what is going to make more of an impact? Me chastising them for something that is tolerated even in their own home, or coming along side of them and actually have a basis for why I am saying what I am? I think I have made more connections with kids that way then any other way.

Love is a tricky thing. Love can't just be a feeling...it has to be a desire to honestly want what's best for the other person. Good and the bad.

I'm just sayin'!