Affection part 5
Affection isn't just us liking the people we like. That's easy. And while it's important, it's a very different thing than what we've been talking about. Liking people that you might not necessarily get along with, naturally, is the true measure and test of love. Because it's not, "I love you (because I "love" everybody) but I don't like you." It's, "I like you because I love you!" Love IS affection. Love is a love feast. A meal that is shared. Look at 2 Corinthians 6:13 (MSG), "I'm speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!" If you're living openly, sharing your life, you can also let the other people IN your life live openly. When you rain on someone's parade it makes them want to stop marching. If you slap someone's hand, it makes them want to stop reaching out. If you shut someone down it makes them want to stop opening up. But if you, instead, celebrate people... encourage them to be who they are... LET people be who they are... then you can build that bond and that connection and that relationship. It only works if you're being real. And if you're letting people be real. You don't have to like everything about everybody. And that's good. Because you won't. You can't. It's impossible. But you can like people whether you agree with them at all times or not. And you can like people because you love them. It starts (and ends) with love. Love is the Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end. It starts with love and it ends with love. Not that it ever really ends. How could everlasting, eternal, abundant, Resurrection Life ever really end? It can't. But that's not my point for today. My point for today, to end this Rant series, is simply letting people be who they are and loving them as they are. And finding that when you truly love someone... it's impossible not to like them. When you're living openly, giving someone else the room and the space and the grace to be who they are... and when you're open with who YOU are... that's when a REAL connection can happen. When the walls come down and you stop trying to be someone you're not--or make people think you're someone you're not--and when you stop trying to change people into who THEY are not... that's when true relationships can form. And that's the only way this life really works. We were created for love. To be loved by God and to love Him back by loving each other with that same love. To receive and release the love of God. To love one another as Jesus loves us. To live and love. Which are not just connected, but are the same things. To live IS to love and to love is to live. You can't have one without the other and you can't do one without the other. And love is giving. So living is giving. Giving yourself. Living openly. Laying your life down for your friends. Gladly spending everything you have and everything you are in order to enrich the lives of the people in your life. Sharing your life. Sharing yourself. Loving people, and finding that in loving them... it's impossible not to like them!