How do we love one another? How do we care for and honor each other? So much of the time my friendships are based in my perceptions. How I see my issues, my heart, my ideas, my values reflected in the actions of those around me…effects how I treat and react to my friends. But the truth is, I do not know the true heart or intentions of my friends. I only know what I project or assume about them.
It is not that I don’t have the time to ask them their intentions, nor is it that I cannot risk asking. I just simply do not, cannot or have not practiced this habit. And yet, ironically I can always find time to comment with others or give my opinions about them behind their backs.
I was wondering about this the other day. Maybe I like the idea of thinking I know my friends, and staying with this pattern of interaction, I can always feel smarter and wiser. As most often my judgments of their behavior or actions are far easier to ingest, because I perceive that I already “know” what they know; making me feel very safe and confident, and even a bit superior because I do not have to grow or change, only wait for them to “catch up” to me…
I am finding the hardest thing about letting my friends have their own agendas is I may not understand or be able to control them. I may find that I have to look at myself differently too; and in that looking more closely at myself I may find flaws in my thinking, my perspective, my intentions. And them I am left at that terrible crossroad once again, will I surrender my pride and let go of my illusion of control.
All I really have today, is the hope that my friends are further along on this journey than I am, and that they will graciously keep including me in their lives, so that one day I may be a better friend to them…the kind of friend who allows growth and change and forgiveness and restoration and redemption and that the only shared hope we have is that we will not be given up on...
Perhaps I do this with Jesus as well. Maybe it is much easier to keep Jesus looking like and behaving like me with the end result being, not having to grow or change or adapt myself to new ideas or values or behavior. The older I get the scarier and more dangerous this becomes. Because the older I get the more I am finding myself set in my ways and fairly stubborn toward change and not so receptive of criticism of any kind, least of which the kind that comes from those I have already decided I “know” well and “understand” completely.
How difficult it must be for Jesus to get through to me. Maybe he feels the same way about me that I feel about my friends…with one very important difference, He really does know me, know my heart and intentions…and He does not give up on me, He keeps coming to me asking me about my heart and actions and not leaving me to my own demise.
Not that I will ever be able to emulate Jesus’ love completely; but O that I might die trying. That I might begin loving my friends, the way He loves; without biased agendas, without judgment and without the need to control; helping them feel safe and confident to take the risk of looking at life through their perspective.
“If therefore there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Philippians 2:1-8
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