Thursday 21 May - Becoming complete

DAILY BYTE

So, how do we do it? How do we “abide” in God’s love?

Well, in John, Jesus says, if you “pay attention to” my commandments, you will abide in my love. And what are Jesus’ commandments? To love one another, as God has loved you.

It’s like a circle – we’re back where we started. You cannot love or receive love from others until you begin the long journey of grasping onto the deep love of God that remains with you at all times.

Jesus makes this comment three times in John – he really means that we should love one another as God has loved us – that the source of our love for others throughout our lives is derived from his love for us.

Loving others is sometimes draining, frustrating, and downright confusing. Sometimes it seems impossible to love those we’re supposed to love most and even more ridiculous to love those whom the world calls unlovable.

But, Jesus has already loved us all with the greatest love possible. He laid down his life. We are probably not going to be doing anything so drastic, but he has done it for us, so that as we give our lives to one another in relationships, no matter how hard they can be, we scoop our love out of the bottomless well of Christ’s – but only if we are allowing ourselves to be refilled with Christ’s love for us, as well.

If we constantly give without drinking in more of God’s love, then it’s like trying to pour water out of a bucket with holes in it. There is no vibrant life in that broken trickle of water, and the bucket is never able to be completely full.

This is the main reason we read the scriptures – to absorb and live in God’s love, learning how to share it with others. It’s why we go to church – to drink in love through the songs, through eating and drinking together in Holy Communion, through listening to love preached through the sermon, and through reading God’s words of love to us. If you feel today like this writing is just a flood of love – then GOOD. Drink it in.

Jesus says, he is telling us these things about living out of his source of love so that our joy may be complete. Jerry Maguire might have said, “You complete me.” But, no one person completes me. You’re not complete – we were made to be in relationship on a journey toward becoming complete through God.

And could there be a more joyful journey? It is a journey that allows us to glimpse snippets of heaven through the people we love, through the people we call friends, and even, surprisingly, through the people we despise or misunderstand. How are you abiding in the journey of God’s love?


GUIDING SCRIPTURE

1 Corinthians 13:4-8a (NRSV)

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.