There are humans who genuinely seek God and his will, and want to love others.
I consider myself one of them.
But why does it seem so hard to love these days?
Maybe because the more we are starved of love, the less capable of love we become.
We experience choppy, imperfect, inconsistent love from other love-starved creatures who also make mistakes like us.
This imperfect love often leave us feeling less loved, less understood, and sometimes more exhausted. We enter a loop of reacting without love (to protect ourselves) which then leads to more pain and less love.
That’s often the best case scenario, because we also could have experienced a life in which we didn’t ever receive any love, and instead experienced abuse, neglect, bullying, etc. Love becomes an impossible dream.
Yet, God is asking us to persevere in loving other love-starved creatures and to trust them enough to open ourselves up to receive their love.
Perhaps we already feel too exhausted or empty to give more. Why even try? It seems people will abandon you, betray you, blame you, misunderstand you, etc.
The Bible even warns us about wolves in sheep clothing who can take advantage of those who give too much without enough discernment (the Bible tells us to still pray for them, not seek revenge, and to overcome evil with good: “love your enemy”). How can truly discern between the sheep and those who look like sheep?
And how do we love those who commit crimes against children? How do we love those who kill the innocent?
But also, how do we love our annoying neighbor? Or the person who hurts us with little mistakes?
And how do we accept love from others when it feels like an imposition? Like a demand for our love and to meet their needs, rather than a caring and genuine act with our best interest in mind?
It is our separation from God which leaves us starved of love (God is love). In fact, hell is nothing but a complete separation from God, a spiritual death, a place completely devoid of love.
Because of this, unless we are fortunate enough to grow around enough healthy love, we often are too depleted to love.
So how do we obey God’s commandment to love one another?
“Seek first the kingdom” Matthew 6:33.
It seems we need to fill our cups first by seeking God’s unconditional love.
Yes, God is just and a fair judge, but sometimes we might have a distorted image of God the judge and of his “wrath”.
God is not trying to scrutinize our every mistake and is not trying to judge us harshly. In fact, He wants to judge us with mercy and compassion. We have to really learn who God truly is, to be able to feel safe enough, to truly know and trust that we are love by Him.
He wants us to approach Him with our sins, laying them down at his feet, exposing our brokenness to Him, sharing our miseries, our confusion, poor of spirit, with child-like honesty, sharing how we really feel and experience the world (and yes, if we feel abandoned by God we can also tell Him that, the psalmist and Christ did it).
If as little children we approached a truly loving father upset, feeling unloved, abandoned, and scared, he wouldn’t turn us down, but instead he would embrace us, try to listen to us to understand why we feel that way. He would hug us, kiss us, provide his love and affection, give us reassurance, encourage us, and that would strengthen us.
So we need to seek God’s kingdom, but with a child-like attitude. Seeking his love as if we were little children who depend on His love for their survival (which we do, because His love is our spiritual food, and without it we perish), who need to be cuddled and protected. “Unless you become like a child, you will never enter the kingdom of heave” Matthew 18:3).