Thoughts on Life

The New York Times recently had an insightful article on how love affects the brain. To me this is further evidence that we seem to be wired for love. Consider some of the quotes from the article:

• “What we pay the most attention to defines us. How you choose to spend the irreplaceable hours of your life literally transforms you.”

• “All relationships change the brain - but most important are the intimate bonds that foster or fail us, altering the delicate circuits that shape memories, emotions and that ultimate souvenir, the self.”

• “A wealth of imaging studies highlight, the neural alchemy continues throughout life as we mature and forge friendships, dabble in affairs, succumb to romantic love, choose a soul mate. The body remembers how that oneness with Mother felt, and longs for its adult equivalent.”

• “‘Scientific studies of longevity, medical and mental health, happiness and even wisdom,’ Dr Siegel says, ‘point to supportive relationships as the most robust predictor of these positive attributes in our lives across the life span.’ The supportive part is crucial. Loving relationships alter the brain the most significantly.”

• “Through lovemaking, or when we pass along a flu or a cold sore, we trade bits of identity with loved ones, and in time we become a sort of chimera. We don’t just get under a mate’s skin, we absorb him or her.” (I would add that this is why casual sex is so destructive; the more we indulge, the more we lose our identity; we don’t know who we are - Nils)

• “As imaging studies by the U.C.L.A. neuroscientist Naomi Eisenberger show, the same areas of the brain that register physical pain are active when someone feels socially rejected.”

• “A happy marriage relieves stress and makes one feel as safe as an adored baby.”

And perhaps the most profound:

• “I saw the healing process up close after my 74-year-old husband, who is also a writer, suffered a left-hemisphere stroke that wiped out a lifetime of language. All he could utter was ‘mem’. Mourning the loss of our duet of decades, I began exploring new ways to communicate, through caring gestures, pantomime, facial expressions, humor, play, empathy and tons of affection - the brain’s epitome of a safe attachment. That, plus the admittedly eccentric home schooling I provided, and his diligent practice, helped rewire his brain to a startling degree, and in time we were able to talk again, he returned to writing books, and even his vision improved. The brain changes with experience throughout our lives; it’s in loving relationships of all sorts - partners, children, close friends - that brain and body really thrive.”

• “During idylls of safety, when your brain knows you’re with someone you can trust, it needn’t waste precious resources coping with stressors or menace. Instead it may spend its lifeblood learning new things or fine-tuning the process of healing. Its doors of perception swing wide open. The flip side is that, given how vulnerable one then is, love lessons - sweet or villainous - can make a deep impression. Wedded hearts change everything, even the brain.”

Love impacts every part of our lives for the better. Knowing that we are loved, and living a life of love, is good for us. As we remember Love personified at Easter, I want to live more like that Love.

In the U2 song, Peace on Earth, Bono sings of his frustration about our constant talk of peace without it ever really happening. Peace, peace when there is no peace is the cry of the prophet he is echoing. All around we see power corrupting and people in power getting their way at the expense of those with no power. Over and over again it happens.

I have no trust in political and economic systems. Ultimately I trust more in Jesus, whose power did not corrupt and through whom our desires for power are redeemed. John Smith asked a question many years ago which is a challenge for everyone who claims to be a serious follower of Jesus. The question is this: who are your friends and who are your enemies? The point he was making is that, when you look at the life of Jesus, His friends were overwhelmingly the powerless, the marginalised and the oppressed. And His enemies were overwhelmingly the rich, the powerful and the oppressors.

If our friends and enemies are the same type of people who Jesus had as friends and enemies, then chances are that we are following Him and can claim the name ‘Christian’. If our friends are the rich and powerful, and our enemies are the poor and powerless, then it is pretty much certain that you are not following Jesus and cannot legitimately call yourself a Christian. Harsh words, but I defy anyone to tell me that what I am saying is not Biblical.

Another question that John Smith has asked is along similar lines. It is a study of Jesus’ encounters with the powerful and the powerless, and whether they were positive or negative encounters. Not surprisingly with Jesus, His encounters with the poor and powerless were overwhelmingly positive, while His encounters with the rich and powerful were overwhelmingly negative. Jesus was constantly in trouble with the authorities, and at the same time, the common people heard Him gladly (Mark 12: 37).

Until the day Jesus returns there will be injustice and abuse of power in this world. Humanity is too sick to change itself on its own. Martin Luther King Jr knew this. On the day that President Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas, King told his wife that the same would happen to him one day, because society is too sick to know any better. Tragically, this great prophet of the 20th century was right, cut down himself only five years later, one more person who stood up for the powerless being silenced in the ultimate manner.

I feel a deep sadness and frustration when I see the powerful abuse their power at the expense of the powerless. A clearly guilty white collar worker gets off because he can afford the best lawyers; executives give themselves huge bonuses while they decry any request for a pay rise by those lower down as dangerous for the economy, and politicians share the perks of office while their constituents struggle each day to make ends meet.

Who can we believe in any more? Who is trustworthy? And here is where I point the finger at myself. Am I trustworthy? Do I abuse my power to get what I want at the expense of those who don’t have the resources that I do?

It is at the times when I hear of power being abused that my faith in Jesus is strengthened. He is the only one who is ultimately trustworthy; He walked His talk, He lived out the courage of His convictions, and when abused Himself, He continued to show the way of love. In Him is our trust ultimately not misplaced. In Him is our only salvation.

I went to a counsellor some years ago who spoke to me about what he called my spiritual DNA. What he was referring to was the sensitivity of spirit that has been handed down to us by our ancestors. Just like a parent who has blond hair and blue eyes will have a child with at least sone of the same features, so a certain sensitivity of spirit will generally be handed down through the generations.

In my case, there is a certain sense of rationalism that has been handed down. My heritage is German, and Germans are known for their sense of the importance of logic and rationality. They are known as being very efficient and sticklers for time. Just ask my wife if this is true of me and she will straight away nod her head in furious agreement.

It is crucially important that we get to know our spiritual DNA, for it will help us to understand ourselves better and therefore help us become more loving people. For me to understand that I have a penchant for the importance of logic and rationality means that I tend to be somewhat skeptical about certain faith issues. I have a scientifically based mind; it’s the way I think. So if something doesn’t make logical sense why would you do it? What I need to learn is that this often leaves out the possibility of mystery and paradox, things which abound in the Scriptures.

Others reading this may be different. You may come from an Asian background for instance, where the supernatural is just part of life, and you may need to embrace a more rational understanding of life. Something I need to realise is that a natural sensitivity towards the supernatural is how the majority of people in the world think. To a person like me, the scientific is generally seen as the ultimate way of perceiving reality. But as Rikk Watts has said, what if there is solid evidence of something happening that defies a scientific explanation? That’s history, and science has to deal with it (I have to say that such an explanation sounds quite logical to this mind!). The event Watts seems to be referring to in his explanation is the physical resurrection of Jesus. It defies scientific explanation, but if it happened, it is history, and science needs to understand that.

The goal of understanding your spiritual DNA is always to bring you closer to the heart of God. If the goal is merely greater self-understanding without any application in helping you be a more loving person, then it is a waste of time, a clanging gong as Paul famously says in I Corinthians 13. Lord help me to understand my roots and see what has shaped me in becoming the person I am today, so that I may better serve you and your world.

If there were no consequences whatsoever for any destructive behaviour you engaged in, would you want to engage in it? Someone asked me that question once, and its profundity has caused me to think long and hard. If there were no consequences for cheating on my wife, for stealing what wasn’t mine, for taking credit when I didn’t deserve it, would I do it?

The issue here is, where is my heart at? How captive am I to that which enslaves me? Many years ago Gil Cann said in a sermon that when we think of our inner life, the heart of the matter is the matter of the heart. At the end of the day, what we all need is a heart transformation. As U2 sang even more years ago, “a new heart is what I need. Oh God, make it bleed!”

Where is my heart at? Do I want what is right simply because it is right? With God’s help, yes I do. But as Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, there is a line that divides the good and evil in every human heart. In our heart of hearts there is a desire to do good which sits alongside a desire to get whatever we can for ourselves. A heart that is being redeemed by grace is one which wants to become more like Christ, that just wants to do the right thing. It is a heart that is sick of its own selfishness and deception, a heart that confesses it is in need of grace, a heart that cries out for renewal.

The human heart needs transformation, and it can only be done by the Holy Spirit. Social justice can’t do it, simply reading the Bible can’t do it, and listening to your favourite preacher or reading your favourite Christian books won’t do it. Only a heart open to the conviction of the Holy Spirit of God is one that will change.

Part of the way the world is set up is that there are consequences for our actions. There are good consequences or there are destructive consequences. We reap what we sow. It cannot be any other way. There are some things we just need to accept in life, and this is one of them.

But not only is this the way life works, it is the wonderful truth of the Christian message. There are consequences that go beyond what we experience in this life, but at the same time those consequences are utterly dependent on our actions in this life. The kingdom of God has broken into history and will one day be fully consummated. Things will one day be finally put to rights. There will be a day when the first will be last and the last will be first, when those who constantly suffer now because of injustice will at last get to see justice, when those who are downtrodden will be downtrodden no more. All the suffering that goes on in the world today is not meaningless; it is in fact redemptive. It will be used for good and it drives us toward hope, the sure hope that one day everything will be put to rights and suffering will be no more.

So, in one sense, the question of whether or not my behaviour would change if there were no consequences is a moot one. The fact is there are consequences and we can’t do anything to avoid the fact. It is a bit like asking what life would be like if there were no gravity on the earth. Our existence just isn’t like that.

Yet on the other hand the question is highly relevant, because it is a question that quite literally speaks to our ultimate motivations for doing the things we do in life. It is a question that asks where our hearts are at. Are we altruistic because it makes us look good and holy in front of our Christian brothers and sisters? Or are we altruistic because we really want to glorify God and see his kingdom of love and transformation come on earth as it is in heaven? Truth be told, we spend most of our lives hovering between both. I know I do. As I continue on this journey of life though, I am also more convinced that living a life daily surrendered to the God of Jesus Christ is the only way to find the sense of home that our restless hearts yearn for.

When we think of the secret thoughts that we have, or even the secret actions that we might engage in, what do we think of the consequences? What do you do with those secret thoughts you have that you are too ashamed to admit? For us men it is said that all of us are faced with the temptation at some point in our lives to run away from everything. Women may have similar dark thoughts. The problem is not so much that we have them, but how we deal with them. This is where it is crucial to have a person or people in our lives with whom we can share our darkest thoughts without shame, with the knowledge that we will still be accepted for who we are, and to know that such thoughts and desires can be redeemed.

My heart needs redeeming every day. It needs desperately to be brought in line with the heart of God. I am sometimes tempted to live like there are no consequences to my actions. But when I am deceived by such thoughts, it is then that I need to be reminded of the transforming love of God in Jesus to change me from the inside out, to create in me a clean heart and renew within me a right spirit. God help me to live such a surrendered life.

I just watched an amazing video of a portrait of Jesus being put together by a wonderful artist. As I was watching, I realised how fascinated I still am by Jesus. After about 25 years of being a believer, He still challenges me, still draws me, still encourages me to strive on to be better than I am.

There is something amazing about this man who lived, died and, I believe, was physically raised 2,000 years ago. People of all persuasions have had their lives turned upside down, been given hope, been infused with meaning, and been turned around from self-destruction to self-giving love by the man from Nazareth. Kings and rulers, and slaves and peasants alike have been utterly transformed by Him.

If you think of some of the things that make Jesus so fascinating, they are at once paradoxical yet at the same time make sense in Him. Things like the fact that He makes the most outrageous, extraordinary claims of Himself, yet not once does He come across as arrogant or self-opinionated. Or how about the fact that He actually intensifies the moral norms of his culture (”you have heard that it was said…but I say to you…”), and yet the most despised of ’sinners’ in that same culture are drawn to Him like metal to a magnet?

Jesus makes the most pressing claims on our lives, yet at the same time gives us grace upon grace - undeserved love. He demands total commitment yet never demands anything He doesn’t do himself. He tells us to love our enemies, and does it Himself. He tells us to walk the extra mile, and He walks it himself. He tells us to take up our cross and follow, and He takes it up himself, even unto death on the most brutal, completely humiliating implement known in those times: a Roman cross.

This is a man like no other. The most intelligent minds in the world, such as former head of the Human Genome Project, Francis Collins, to the child who sits in wonder at the fact of Jesus’ love, come away transfixed, never the same again. Two thousand years later, Jesus appeals to to great minds and little children alike. And throughout those 2,000 years, thousands have been transformed in a way they cannot explain but for the presence of a love outside of themselves. As Bono said once when it was suggested to him that this Jesus stuff is a bit outrageous: the alternative is that thousands of people throughout history have had their lives turned upside down by a madman - now that’s outrageous!

I read a bit of the Bible every day. I have read about Jesus for years; I have written about Him and I daily try to live my life as He did, but still I find myself drawn to Him, still I find myself wanting to be like Him, still I want to learn more from Him, and more than ever I am convinced that only in Him lies the life and hope that we all strive for.

As I ponder, I can only echo the famous words of Dr James Allan Francis, written almost a century ago, of this One Solitary Life:

He was born in an obscure village
The child of a peasant woman
He grew up in another obscure village
Where he worked in a carpenter shop
Until he was thirty
He never wrote a book
He never held an office
He never went to college
He never visited a big city
He never travelled more than two hundred miles
From the place where he was born
He did none of the things
Usually associated with greatness
He had no credentials but himself
He was only thirty three
His friends ran away
One of them denied him
He was turned over to his enemies
And went through the mockery of a trial
He was nailed to a cross between two thieves
While dying, his executioners gambled for his clothing
The only property he had on earth
When he was dead
He was laid in a borrowed grave
Through the pity of a friend
Nineteen centuries have come and gone
And today Jesus is the central figure of the human race
And the leader of mankind’s progress
All the armies that have ever marched
All the navies that have ever sailed
All the parliaments that have ever sat
All the kings that ever reigned put together
Have not affected the life of mankind on earth
As powerfully as that one solitary life

To paraphrase Paul Simon, I remain, of Jesus, still fascinated after all these years.

I’ve had an emotional couple of weeks. It started when my wife and I attended a conference on a Christian response to climate change. The situation really is dire but our response is not to be one of despair and throwing our hands up in defeat. Our response is to be one of Christlikeness - of love, justice and mercy, especially for the millions who will be affected the most and who have done the least to contribute to it - the poor.

During some breaks in the conference I was speaking to a few people and found out that a dearly loved woman in our church community who has been suffering from brain cancer had a week to live (she passed on the next morning. RIP Kate - safe in the arms of Jesus). We had all thought she had about nine months. A few of us went to see her the day before she died, along with her 12-year-old son who she last saw as an eight month old baby. It was so touching seeing her son take his mother’s hand, but also so sad knowing that this will be his only memory of seeing his mother.

During another break in the conference we also found out that a couple we knew had split up, leaving kids traumatised and confused. That weekend was truly a sobering one.

Life is unspeakably sad, as psychologist Larry Crabb puts it. And, as a song that we used to sing in church says, life is sad, and it might not get easier. There are no guarantees in life, not in this life anyway. Whatever we try to do to control life, in the end we cannot. Instead we are beholden to the whims of outrageous fortune and there is simply nothing we can do about it. Millions of people in Japan know all about that as I write.

Throughout the uncertainties and failed hopes of life, the Christian message is what sustains me. That is no glib statement; it is the hope of my heart. In Christ is my ultimate hope. He has promised that there will be a day when suffering will be no more, when brain cancer will be wiped away, when love will reign supreme in relationships and when the climate will sustain a healthy planet. Until then, loving is sadness, and we toil on, trudging the rugged, uphill road of life.

But despite our trudging, it is forward that we go, and forward we go together. In community, never alone, and never without ultimate hope.

Life is hard, anyway you cut it. So sang John Mellencamp in a song to which every honest person in the world can relate. We are not spared simply because we are Christian. To the contrary, it is because we follow the crucified One, the suffering God, that our suffering is all the more acute. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. No one is spared, but at the same time, no one is beyond hope.

Personally, I don’t want to give my life to anything else. I love the way of Jesus. No, more than that, I love Jesus Himself. In a world of nonsense, he makes sense. In a world of bitterness and hatred he brings love, and in a world of disease he brings healing. O how I love Jesus, as the old hymn says it.

It is in the times of deepest sadness that love is found. It is at these times that we are shaken out of our slumber and reminded again of what really matters - love, relationship and grace. These are the things that endure. Ross Langmead sings a song which reminds us that we are not alone in suffering, that Jesus goes before us: “We are not alone; he knows our sorrows, he will turn our tears to joy.”

Our suffering is not meaningless. Martin Luther King talked about redemptive suffering, suffering that grows and heals us. The road to life feels like the road to death at times. But it is redemptive. Our pain does not go unheard. It does not simply disappear into an indifferent universe, lost forever with no one knowing and no one caring. Who of us can deny that suffering is real? The promise given to the ancient Israelites when they were suffering under the yoke of slavery in Egypt is the same promise given to us: “I have heard your cries and will do something about it”.

What God has done about it is absorb our pain on a brutal Roman cross, and rise from death, never to be defeated again. This was truly victory in defeat, as Sammy Horner so beautifully puts it:

That the nails that pierced his hands
And the thorns that pierced his brow
And the spear that pierced his side
And the nails that pierced his feet
Showed us there can be victory in defeat

We do not go forward in this life alone. Jesus does indeed go before us. Our suffering does not go unheard. It has a purpose and will one day be turned into joy unspeakable. Until then we toil and trudge, but with the hope of a future where this old order of things - death, decay and disease - will have passed away forever. Amen, come Lord Jesus.

‘Fill your lives with love and bravery and you will lead a life uncommon’ - ‘Life Uncommon’ – Jewel

The life Jesus lived was a life uncommon. In fact it was so uncommon that no-one has been able to lead a life like it before or since. It is a life which gives us the ultimate guide on how to live in a Godly manner. And now we have the Spirit to give us power - the power to do what is right. That is why Jesus said that when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth (John 16: 13). When we live this life, a life lived in total devotion and commitment to Jesus, we too live a life uncommon.

Romans 12: 2 says to not be conformed to the pattern of the world but to be transformed by the renewing of your minds. It is a life lived against the grain, a life of swimming against the tide of popular opinion and cultural norms.

Martin Luther King talked about this when he spoke of living the life of a transformed nonconformist in his magnificent Strength to Love. Most of us don’t live this life, preferring instead to live a life of maximum comfort. As we think of people like King, Gandhi and JFK - the latter having told his countrymen 50 years ago this week to ask not what their country could do for them but what they could do for their country - we remember that such people inspire us, but how many of us would actually go as far as to take that life seriously and actually live it?

When Jesus talked about coming to give us abundant life (John 10: 10), He was not referring to simply enjoying the life we live here and now (although life certainly is to be enjoyed). He was talking about living a life of following Him, which starts by denying ourselves and taking up our cross. The life uncommon that we then lead, the counter-cultural life, the life of swimming against the tide, is the only life worth living.

I love people like Richard Rohr who are so warm and Christlike, and who just say it as it is. I am tired of the way Christians have gone along with the sanitised “sweet baby Jesus, no crying he makes” version of Christmas that we have been fed. The reality is far from that. Let Richard Rohr explain it better than I ever could:

“Jesus identified his own message with what he called the coming of the ‘reign of God’ or the ‘kingdom of God’, whereas we have often settled for the sweet coming of a baby who asked little of us in terms of surrender, encounter, mutuality or any studying of the Scriptures or the actual teaching of Jesus.

“This is what you are invited to this Advent. But be forewarned: the Word of God confronts, converts, and consoles us - in that order. The suffering, injustice and devastation on this planet are too great now to settle for any infantile gospel or any infantile Jesus. Actually, that has always been true.”

“Days turn to minutes, and minutes to memories. Life sweeps away the dreams that we have planned” - John Mellencamp, Minutes to Memories

There is a scene in the movie Up in the Air where George Clooney’s character is trying to convince his brother-in-law-to-be to not jilt his bride on their wedding day. The groom has cold feet and isn’t sure he wants to go through with such a huge commitment. And Clooney, who is starting to realise the loneliness of his own 24/7 casual jetsetting lifestyle, asks the groom to remember all of the happiest times of his life. As the groom starts to think, he realises that they were all spent with other people; the happiest times of his life were when he was not by himself.

I was being shown some photos of the family of a friend the other day. This person has eight siblings and the family gets together often to celebrate birthdays and other special occasions. As I was driving home that day I felt a sadness come over me. I am one of three brothers who all live in different cities. Soon we will all be living in different countries. I don’t have a large family to see here. I was then reminded of some family friends whose extended family now spans four generations. The first and second generations of this family have spent every summer holiday for the last 40 years at the same place. Some would say “how boring!” but I think it’s wonderful. This family can associate that place with the best moments of their lives. I have sometimes joined them on their holidays and I have always felt just as much a part of their family as the blood relations themselves.

We have been sold a lemon in our busy 24/7 lives. We have been taught to believe that our happiness actually lies in having more stuff and not having people bother us all the time. Many of us would rather live on our own than go through the hassle of sharing a house with someone else. And many of us would rather the all-fun-and-no-responsibility of casual sex than the hard work and struggle of a committed relationship.

We live a lonely existence in the western world. I heard someone say recently that we know more of what is happening on the other side of the world than we do about our next-door neighbours. We build our fences higher and spend more time online than we do getting to know people face-to-face. I remember growing up in suburban Melbourne and knowing every person or family in our street. I still have memories of our next-door neighbour passing some of our kitchen chairs that he had just fixed back over the fence to us. I wonder how many of our children today will have those memories when they look back in 30 years’ time.

I was talking to a colleague on the bus during the week about this. This lady is African and has been living in Australia for about a year now. As we were discussing what life is like for her compared to back home, she remarked that one of the things she has noticed is the number of people who either live alone or who spend time alone. She said that in her country it was a duty to introduce yourself to your neighbours when you moved into a new area. It is just part of what you do. And sure enough, people quickly get to know each other and there is a lot less fear in their neighbourhoods than there is in much of suburban Australia. We are poorer for the fact that we generally don’t do that as well in this country.

Our deepest and most cherished memories are indeed of those times spent in relationship. It is often difficult but it far outweighs the pain of the lonely crowd, of not feeling connected to the people closest to us. Dave Andrews has said that community is somewhere where there is always someone you don’t want to be around, and some friends of mine once said that anything worth doing is never going to be easy. Our lives in this world are short and we never know when our time is up. The writer of Ecclesiastes was right - our lives are vanished in an instant; we come from the dust and to the dust we will return (Ecclesiastes 3: 20). And it can all seem like a chasing after the wind. Life does indeed sweep away the dreams we have planned.

The hard work of bringing in community, of getting to know our neighbours, can be so simple. A friend of mine said during the week that just having a kick of the footy in the street can bring other children out. Then all of a sudden conversations start, people get to know each other and walls of fear and mistrust break down.

Jesus did this when He broke all the social conventions of 1st century culture by associating with tax collectors and ’sinners’. Jesus knew how to have a good time, and He told His disciples of the joy He had within Him. His life was about relationship and the early church followed in His footsteps. They endured the daily struggle of living in community, they shared all they had; they passed their kitchen chairs over the fence to each other, if they even had fences. And their lives were so attractive that they added to their number daily those who were being saved from their own loneliness and self-absorption to life in the community of Jesus.

Does all this stir up a longing within you, a longing for things that once were? Do you have similar childhood memories to the ones I have related and wish they could be the reality once again? One day when the new heavens and the new earth come together and all things are made new, we will enjoy that community again. But this time it will be complete and we will create new memories, memories which will live forever. And the wonderful news of the Gospel is that Jesus calls us to that new life now. He calls us to deny ourselves, to do the hard work of relationship and to put our lonely, selfish ways behind us.

He came that we would have life in all its fullness. And that life is only found in community. It is found in community with those who are also living for justice and peace, those who struggle with each other in the now but who also live in the hope of the not-yet, that time when all barriers will be broken down and all things reconciled in the glorious world to come.

There is much more to say about these profound lyrics by John Mellencamp. Memories can be cherished and they can be painful. Far too many people have memories that are just too traumatic to raise again. All of us have dreams that have been shattered, expectations that did not eventuate, and hopes that were never realised. One of the best pieces of advice I have heard, from two different people, is that life is mainly about how we deal with loss, ultimately to the loss of our life.

Psychologist Larry Crabb says we can use disappointment to drive us to hope. What Crabb is referring to is the ultimate hope of the renewal of all things. When days turn to minutes, and minutes to memories, and life sweeps away the dreams that we have planned, remember that we are destined for more. This life is not all there is. Remember too that everything we do in this life matters. What Martin Luther King Jr called the beloved community starts now. The greatest things in our lives are those done in relationship. When we live this out we will be able to look back and have memories that move us to gratitude - gratitude to God for giving us the courage to follow the One who calls us to remember, to remember what He has done in sacrificing His all and giving us the privilege of working with Him to bring in the kingdom where our dreams of love and justice, and forgiveness and grace will finally be realised.

I love you ‘cos I need to, not because I need you. I love you ‘cos I understand that God has given me your hand – U2, Luminous Times

I was walking through the café at work the other day and heard this U2 song playing over the airwaves. The next line of the song says “hold on to love”. Love is the only force that triumphs over anything. It often comes across as weakness but it succeeds where others perpetually fail.

Much of what we call love though is really an emotional neediness which comes across as being nice, but is actually designed to protect us from rejection. I know this because I do it all the time. As I realise this more I realise how committed I am to not experiencing the pain of someone not loving me in return. My good deeds are often cloaked in the convincing veneer of niceness. And I am further blinded to this when people feed back to me about how nice I have been to them.

True love comes out of a deep conviction that love does indeed transform an enemy into a friend, as Abraham Lincoln said so long ago. It comes out of a deep conviction that love is the most powerful force in the universe. That’s why the words of this song are so powerful.

The paradox of true love though is that there is a genuine neediness about it. True love loves because of a human need to live this way; it is the way we are wired. At the same time, true love does not need the other in a negative self-protective way to boost its own ego or identity. It is free of all that; it is free to truly love the other no matter the response. If the response is hatred, true love continues to love; if the response is indifference or apathy, true love continues to love; and if the response is love reciprocated, true love still continues to love.

As I write I am reminded of two famous people who both talked and walked this attitude in their lives. I speak of course of Martin Luther King Jr and Mother Teresa. Dr King talked often of the power of redemptive, suffering love, and Mother Teresa has the following words attributed to her, which were apparently written on the wall of her home for children in Kolkata, India. Even if they were not written by her, they fully encapsulate the life she lived:

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centred. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

Hold on to love. Cultivate it, learn it, and most of all, ask God for it, because we simply don’t have in us the capacity to live a life of love without the Spirit of Jesus living in us and guiding us. He will redeem the ugliness of our self-protective neediness into a love that only the Divine can empower us with.