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If you’ve ever been a child (especially one with a sibling) or had children or been a classroom full of children, chances are you’ve encountered a situation like this: there has been an argument. It seems HUGE. There have been oaths sworn about never talking to someone again, about hating them, about being so angry. There have been threats to run away, perhaps even tiny pink suitcases packed with all the most precious things–My Little Ponies, a toothbrush, a favorite stuffed animal.

Then the authority figure steps in. Oh, we all know those scowls, don’t we? We know the look on our mom’s or dad’s or teacher’s face–and if we’re parents ourselves, we know what it feels like on our own face. When it was us as the child, we felt that tightness in the chest. The burn of fury. The certainty that they didn’t understand.

Then come the words: “Apologize to your sister” or “Hug and make up” or “Sit down and work things out.”

And what is the response, every…single…time? “But…!”

Somewhere in the argument is a but. Maybe it’s the first word: “But she started it!” Maybe it’s somewhere in the middle: “I would, but…”

What happens next? Did Mom just say, “Yeah, you’re right. She’s mean. You have a right to be angry. In fact, you should hit her back. Then you should stand over her and gloat. And finally, you know what you should do? You should tell her she hates this family and is a disgrace to us all and that it’s about time she gets what’s coming to her. Oh, and while you’re at it? Tell her I told you to do it.”

Of course not. What did she really say? “I’ll handle your sister’s punishment if she did something wrong. Your job is to forgive her and ask to be forgiven. You’re not faultless here. Now go to your room and think about it.” (Okay, yes, sometimes Mom is so frustrated by now this is shortened to just, “I said go to your room!” But you get the idea.)

We’re grownups now. No Mom or Dad or teacher standing over us to referee our relationships or attitudes. But we’re not off the hook. Because we have a Father who’s even more a stickler than our parents were. And we know what He says:

Love your enemies.
Pray for those who persecute you.
Love and do not hate.
Forgive your brother seventy times seven times.
Keep no record of wrongs.
Turn the other cheek.
When they take your coat, offer your shirt too.

I am grieved at how I’m seeing Christians act today. I don’t honestly care about your politics or who you voted for or what side you come down on on certain issues. I don’t care if we agree or disagree on current events.

What I do care about is the bitterness, darkness, and gloating I’m seeing in people who are supposed to follow the Light. I’m seeing people who want to turn over the money tables but aren’t so keen on loving the money changers. I’m seeing a lot of people who, like the disciples, are eager to call down fire and brimstone on the town that didn’t accept the Gospel, but I’m not seeing many people advocating for mercy–the very mercy Christ offered those offenders.

You know what I’ve had to start doing? Every time I see a post that espouses something I don’t agree with, I remind myself of God’s perfect call concerning that person: LOVE THEM

And then I examine my gut reaction. Is it, “Yes, Lord. Help me to love them better. Draw them ever closer to you. Remove the speck from my eye so that I can love them better”?

Or is it, “But they’ve been trampling on my rights for years!” or “I do love them, but they’re getting what they deserve!” or “But they’re wrong and I’m right!”?

If my answer to “love them” includes a “but,” then I’m doing it wrong. Then I’m the one who needs to ask for forgiveness. Because my job in this world is not to be the parent, doling out punishment. My job is to LOVE THEM. God will handle the ultimate sorting, and if I’m sitting in my room smirking at the thought of those other people being punished, then I am not loving them. If my first concern is for what I stand to gain instead of what someone else stands to lose, then I am not loving them. If my attitude turns someone away from Christ and His Church, then guess what? Not only am I not loving them, I’m damaging the very thing I should be pursuing.

If I apply a label to a person, stance, or action and use that label as an excuse for why they should be dismissed or treated poorly, then I am not loving them. And if my first reaction to someone pointing it out is, “But this isn’t about God’s love, this is about justice,” then guess what? I am not loving them. God loves mercy more than justice.

Why does it matter?

“Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” (Col 3:13)

So…how did the Lord forgive us?

He gave up everything He had (a home in Heaven) to come into our filth.
He gathered not the self-proclaimed righteous, but the sinners to His table.
He healed every disease.
He welcomed the stranger.
He forgave those who hurt Him.
He died to take our sins on Himself.
He called a political dissident (a Zealot) and a tax collector for Rome and made them part of the same inner circle.

Church, we’re not just acting like the world right now instead of Jesus. We’re acting worse than the world, because we know better. We are not children any longer. When God tells us to love our enemies (which He has never stopped doing), you know what we need to do?

We need to check our “but”s. If any sneak into our response, then we had better stop right there, fall to our knees, and pray for forgiveness. There is no room for but in God’s love.

With my Patrons & Peers group, I’m reading a book called Devotional Classics, which has excerpts from all sorts of theologians from a variety of Christian backgrounds. A few weeks ago, we read a bit by Bernard of Clairveaux. He was talking about the four levels of devotion we go through.

First, we love ourselves for our own sake. Then we love God for our own sake. Then we love God for His own sake. Then, rarely, once in a while, we get a glimpse of how to love ourselves for God’s sake.

As we discussed this as a group, I mused that this growth can be explained as “circles” of faith.

Every human begins life with self-centered focus. This is perfectly natural. To quote one of my college professors, “Every baby is a tyrant.” And it’s true! We have to be taught to think about someone other than ourselves (and some of us are more successful at learning this than others, LOL). We are, at the core, the centers of our own universes.

I remember when I was a child, maybe six or seven, I was sitting in the car with one of my parents. We’d pulled to a halt at the end of our long, winding road, where it intersects the main thoroughfare through town, Rt. 28. I couldn’t tell you what season it was or where we were going. But I distinctly remember this moment where I looked at one of the cars driving by, saw the driver through the window, and had this strange epiphany.

I realized that was a person in that car–one I didn’t know. Whose name I didn’t even know. I realized that they were driving somewhere I wasn’t going, for a purpose that had nothing to do with my life. I realized they had joys and pains, friends and enemies…all very different from mine.

It’s at once silly and profound, but it represents a huge turning point in my young life–that point where I realized it wasn’t about me. When I realized that I had nothing to do with most of the world. I saw my own smallness, and instead of just being humbling (though it is that), what it really did was throw the doors of the world wide open.

It made me aware of all the many stories playing out all around me…stories I could learn if I looked beyond my own nose.

My circle expanded. It suddenly went beyond just me, my family, and my friends. It expanded to include strangers.

It’s likely no coincidence that was about the same time in my life when God and Jesus went from being vague concepts I learned about in church to beings that I loved. When I looked beyond me, much as Bernard says would happen, I began to see that there must be Someone greater than me, and that Someone is God. I realized that God loves me, and so I loved him back.

In this second phase, this second circle, we realize that God will hear our petitions, and so we make them. But a bit of the transactional still lingers in our understanding and in our thoughts.

We love Him because He first loved us. We love Him because He sent His son to die for us. We love Him because we eat and are filled. We love Him because of the signs and wonders. We love Him because He created. We love Him because He saved. We love Him because He answers our prayers.

We love Him for what He does.

This, too, is natural. After all, Jesus came to do things. He performed signs and wonders. But what did He say so many times in the Gospels? He accused people of having little faith because that was all they cared about.

Our circles are still too small. It’s still to close to that “me-centric” way of seeing things. But how do we expand it?

That comes when we separate our love from the transaction–both love of God and love of others. We stop loving Him for what He’s done and begin to love Him for who He is.

The same holds true of the people around us. We need to love people, not because they believe what we believe or think what we think, not because we like what they do or because they helped us out…we need to love people for who they are.

Image-bearer.
God-made.
Beloved of the Father.
Worthy of salvation.

It isn’t easy–neither having that love of humankind nor of God. And I don’t know about you, but I need constant reminders to stay in that circle. It’s so, so easy to slip back into “me.”

But you know what? That circle still isn’t the end-game. Not according to St. Bernard, and not according to God, and not according to our own experience either. You know where we really want to be, even if only for moments at a time?

That fourth circle, that fourth level of love and devotion is when we can see ourselves clearly, as God sees us.

We can see our smallness…and our greatness. We can see who we really are, apart from what we do. We can see how much He loves us and love ourselves in that same way, not with self-interest, but with pure grace, pure mercy.

In those moments, we know how we fit in the world. We might just be one little person in one little car on one little road in one little town in one little county in one little state in one little country…but He loves us. He loves us so much that He sent Christ to die for us. He loves us even though we’re petty and selfish and greedy. He loves us, and not because of those good deeds we did or how often we read our Bible. He loves us, not because of what we’ve done or dream of doing or refrain from doing.

He loves us because we are His. And so, in those glimpses of eternity, we love ourselves because we are His. 

Those moments are always fleeting. Just glimpses of our true place in our Father’s heart. But they equip us, friends, to go back to that third circle and dwell there with purpose.

Because when we see ourselves through God’s eyes, we see everyone else that way too. And you know what happens when we view others through God’s eyes?

We love them. Not for what they do. For who they are.

Who do we need to work on loving with God’s love today?