Flexible part 4
Sometimes the hardest things in life are the things that break the easiest. Because they aren't flexible. They are hard, and rigid, but not necessarily strong. Some of the strongest things are the ones that can bend but not break. The things that can take what's presented to them and accept it. Or, if not completely accept it, at least be ok with the differences between different people. I think that's the strongest thing about love: Love does not demand its (HIS) own way. You can be who you are (who you think you are) and God will love you anyway. LOVE will love you anyway. Because what else could love do? For love to not love it wouldn't be love. For GOD to not love He wouldn't be God. Love isn't just what God DOES, love is who God IS. And, again, He keeps no list of rights and wrongs. Hebrews 10:16-17 describes the New Covenant in this way: "This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." And that always led me to the question of, "If God doesn't remember our sins, why do WE?" Why are we so rigid, and sin conscious? Why do we try to trap people in religous boxes that nobody really fits in? Why are so intent on "sending people to hell" when we could just love the hell out of them instead? (And if God doesn't keep track of our rights and wrongs, and doesn't remember our sins and iniquities, how would anyone "qualify" for this so called "hell" anyway? But I digress.) The point is, if you put expectations on people, they will inevitably let you down. The Law of Moses put the expectation of perfection on people. And ALL sinned and fell short. Because Adam, humanity's representative--before the cross--sinned and fell short of the glory of God. But then God GAVE us His glory. We couldn't earn it. But He wanted us to have it. So He gave it to us. When He gave HIMSELF to us. When He gave His Spirit to us. When He gave His only begotten Son to us. So that we could stop trying to live a certain way, and instead let Jesus live His own abudant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life in us, and through us, and as us. So that we could live a life of love by letting God love us and loving each other with that same love. Letting people be who they are and being flexible to STOP trying to change them into who WE think they should be, and just loving them no matter what. And, as always, I'm not saying you should put yourself or keep yourself in a bad situation. I think you should give it everything you are and everything you have. And at that point its either enough... or it isn't. And either way you've done what you can do. You don't have to subject yourself to torture, or abuse, in order to love someone. But you can't CHANGE people either. It goes both ways. People are who they are and they're going to do what they're going to do. You can either be rigid, and break. Or you can be flexible and bend. You can let people be who they, or you can drive yourself crazy trying to get them to be someone they're not. You can try to control people... or you can just love them!