The Activity of Love
The strength it takes to be active in love
A Brief History of My Struggles with Love
I have been struggling for a while with what it really means to love.
If you have read any of my previous posts, you will have seen to some extent why that struggle is understandable and a natural result of the (lack) of examples of it that I received throughout my life… Roman Catholic parents who twisted the Bible (in true Roman Catholicism fashion) to excuse and give credibility to their abuses, not only to us, their children, but also to one another… Roman Catholic, abusive aunts, uncles, grandparents, parish communities, priests, nuns… Unbelieving, abusive men and women I met in society and at work… men and women, both “Christian” and unbelieving alike, in society and at work who perpetuated, laughingly, the debauched, promiscuous way of life…
It’s no surprise, with this depressing picture, that I - and so many like me - don’t actually know what it means to really, truly LOVE and BE loved.
A Catalyst to Learning About Love
Today was a day off from work for my husband, which means we stayed up late last night and slept in this morning. We were woken with a loud banging on the door; one of my brothers-in-law bringing us cevapi for breakfast. Upon my husband bringing it inside, he received a call from his mother, telling him he needed to pick her up and take her to a doctor’s appointment.
I was still in bed, neither of us were dressed for the day, neither of us had eaten. Sulejman began dressing right away, asking me if I wanted to go with him or stay home. I went to the bathroom and told him I’d go with him, dressing quickly and putting my Bible into my backpack, thinking ‘Lord knows I’m gonna need this to keep myself from raging this morning’.
Yes, I unfortunately started the day upset and constantly asking Jesus to calm me down and show me how to love through the frustrations my in-laws were presenting to me.
And Jesus pulled through for me, as He always does.
Today’s chapter, as I proceed through my first ever read through of the entire Bible, was 1 John chapter 4. I knew it was going to be exactly what I needed because my woman’s study Bible was full of side notes on love and how this chapter applies to women.
So I sat in the front passenger seat of the car as my husband went in to his parent’s store to say hello to his parents and escort his mom out to the car for her appointment… and I began reading chapter 4. He humbled me as He showed me how I was sitting in a heart posture and mindset of being better than my husband just because I have Jesus, but am truly no better than anyone because I am not God… I have not perfected His love, nor have I shown love as I ought, because I was relying on the feeling and not what it actually is.
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
~ 1 John 4:7-21
Love is active.
From U.S. Army Soldier to Soldier for Jesus Christ
For a brief time, I got serve in the U.S. Army National Guard. I went to a few months of drill weekends prior to my basic and advanced trainings, during which I was injured so that I couldn’t walk without crutches, was sexually assaulted, had my life threatened and attempts made on my life by those within the Army, and eventually had to be discharged.
I didn’t understand, for years, why I was allowed to serve for such a brief time but didn’t get to complete my plan for a full career. I will tell the story another time, but for now let me just say, I can see there were multiple reasons things happened the way they did. Ultimately, in every one of those reasons, God saved my life and is still using those experiences to teach me, now.
One of the things I received in the entire set of experiences was an understanding of just how much my body is capable, as well as just how much it NEEDS to be fit and strong. My leg that was injured still prevents me from doing as extensive training as I’d like, and my asthma has come back in fuller force since I’ve lived here, but those are just learning curves to which I have to adapt.
I’m currently the heaviest I’ve ever weighed. And I see, daily, the direct results of not training my body regularly, consistently, or at all. I now see how it effects other areas of my life (a worsening of my PCOS symptoms, my ability to complete even basic chores around the house, etc). And because of today’s reading and events, I see how the lack of exercise and training in my body effects my ability to fight the spiritual battles constantly being waged in my life.
To fight any battle, it is most wise and prudent to wear armour. To wear armour, you MUST possess a fairly high level of strength if you don’t want to keep your feet rooted to the ground on which you strapped it to your body, much more to pull yourself back on your feet from having fallen or from lying prone to fire at the enemy unseen. And to acquire that strength, no shortage of discipline is necessary.
This is no less true for donning and wearing spiritual armour, the armour of God, and fighting spiritual battles.
Satan’s attack scheme is based in deceit and mockery of all that God has created, including His laws, His commandments. In Jesus’s words, the command He gives us that encompasses all other laws from God is as follows…
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
~ John 13: 34-35
What better way to win the spiritual battles than to attack the physical ones, giving them new names such as “self-love” and “self-care”?
I won’t go into the examples throughout even our most recent history of the last hundred years, in which we see where these ideals came from. But I will encourage you to look into them, as they apply to your own life.
I have to do this, today. Regardless the fact that I have had to look into these very facts and events over and over prior to today, to figure out what is true, what is false, and how to act in my life so that we are actually healthy.
I find, today, that because I have allowed myself to slip… no… not slip… PLUMMET out of any kind of habit of training and disciplining my body, I have a more difficult time donning the armour of God, and as a result, struggle far greater with the spiritual battles that come to my door. These spiritual battles have centered more and more around my husband, making it that much more confusing.
Satan’s schemes toward me are, now very clear, to use my faith in God, in Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit, in His Word, twist that faith, twist Scripture, and present it before my mind, my heart, and my eyes as righteous that I view myself as better than my husband, BECAUSE of that faith.
But the reality is I am just as great a sinner, if not greater. The reality is I lack discipline. I lack strength. I lack active love.
I am determined Satan will not win this battle (he’s already lost because Jesus has won the war), and the Father heard my prayer through His Son, Jesus, and had His Son send His Holy Spirit to guide me to this chapter today, to humble me, and to make a new determination and fire rise in me to work at these failings.
In God, ALL things are possible.
So I will leave you with the side notes from my NIV Woman’s Study Bible, and with hope and prayers that you will also be Divinely inspired and guided to a greater active love.
God bless you, each and all! in Jesus’s Mighty Name. Amen.
