"How can you think of saying, 'Friend, let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,' when you can't see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye."- Luke 6:42.
Over the past several weeks God has been teaching me how to truly love people as he does. This has been something that I have struggled with my entire life because I never really had God's love modeled for me to even know the right way to love someone. Wait, let me take that back - there is no right or wrong way to love someone. You either love them or you don't.
I say this not because I don't think that there aren't people out there who honestly have good intentions toward people and are trying to love their family, friends, and significant others as best they know how. I should know because I was one of these people trying my best most of the time - yet failing miserably. There is not a wrong way and a right way to love people. There is only one way to love and that is loving people as God does and trust me, He knows how to love people because He wrote the book on it, He invented it...Heck, He IS love!
If we don't allow the author of love to teach us how to truly love others then we will never know what real love is or how to give this love to others. This is what God says true love is...
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away." - 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
If we don't connect ourselves with the love of God and allow Him to love us and teach us how to truly love others then we will be without the very force that God says will remain after everything else is a distant memory -love.
So, what happens when we don't have a knowledge of or don't practice love in its true form as seen in the passage above? We are left with "like". The funny thing about "like" is that most people see it as just a step below love. You know how it goes - When a couple first starts dating "like" is the term they use when wanting to show affection until they both feel they've been together long enough to say "I love you". It's the term used in new but promising friendships. My point is that like is often viewed as the precursor to love.
The truth is, though, that love is pure and holy while "like" is fickle, shallow, and is nothing more than a reaction to situations and people that are constantly changing. Liking something or someone is nothing more than the momentary feeling we as humans have when something pleases our senses. THIS is what we are left with as people if we don't know how to love.
Ever wonder why the divorce rate is so high? Because people don't know how to love. They only know how to like. They don't realize this because liking something can be a very strong and convincing feeling and emotion. After all, isn't that how we're told by society to know when we truly love someone? They tell us "you'll feel it". Like is a human emotion but love is a gift from God that allows you to love someone regardless of what you're emotions are telling you. If we only have the ability to like and don't know how to truly love people then we become fickle and as the verse says at the beginning of this post - we become hypocrites who constantly point out "specks" in those we're trying our best to love.
There are some people that just seem to derive pleasure out of going around and pointing out the flaws in anyone they run into, even if they don't know them. These flaws or "specks" are the issues that they perceive the other person needs to fix in their life. For the most part though, I've realized that we point out specks the most in those who we are closest to or cherish the most.
You see, if you truly care about someone and are trying to love them yet you only know how to like them, this means that how you feel about them and your happiness with them as a person is completely and totally dependent upon their words and actions. If they are saying and doing the right things - you're happy with them. Then they do something that you can't stand and instantly those feelings you felt about them five minutes earlier are rapidly disappearing. As I said, "Like" is a fickle emotion. This leads to us constantly trying to fix the other person so they will be exactly as we need them to be or think they should be because it's only then that they will become acceptable to us. Acceptable as our friend, acceptable as a family member or acceptable as a boyfriend or as a wife.
People pick specks because they are unaware of the only force that can make the specks invisible -love. The funny thing about a speck is that specks are extremely small, you'd have to be extremely close to someone to see a speck in their eye. This is what people who only know how to "like" and not love people make a living doing.
Because "like" is such a fickle emotion, it cannot endure people's bad habits, flaws and imperfections. So tragically, people that only know how to "like" spend their entire time getting closer and closer, always subconsciously looking for yet dreading the moment when they find the speck in the other person. This speck can't be tolerated by those who only know how to "like". Only true love covers imperfections and flaws- so in order for us to continue liking someone or to start liking someone, we must tell them of their speck and demand they deal with it.
I'm an expert on this because I used to be this person who tried my best to love people but could only ever like them. Sure, I thought I was loving them but then again, so many people do think that they truly love people - remember the divorce rate mention? All people who thought they were madly in love until the other person stopped satisfying their senses and emotions. Liking someone is an emotion. It's part of the senses so in order for the feeling of "like" to survive it must be fed by the senses.The moment the Senses stopped being pleased the Divorce papers are signed.
Liking someone or something is a personal choice that s made by each person everyday and no one said that we were required to "like" everything and everyone. Certainly, you need to initially like the person you marry but when it comes to people, God calls us to do more than like them. He calls us to love them. The truth is, we may not always like certain people but if we truly know what love is, then we will always be able to love them, if we desire to, because true love doesn't look at the other person and their imperfections as the determining factor of acceptance but it looks to God and His love for us and realizes that true love is ALWAYS unconditional love. There is a word for love that has conditions - it's called "like".
As the Bible says, love truly is a mystery. You don't know exactly how to explain it or describe it but once God truly does a work in your heart and teaches you how to love you'll know it.
...Because you'll stop looking for specks and start getting rid of logs.
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