No Ill part 4
Perfect love fulfills the Law. Because everything--including the Law--is about love. Nothing was created except by, and through, and because of love. The God who IS love wanted to express Himself. So He created you and me. So that He could love us. So that He could love THROUGH us. In us. As us. And love works no ill to His neighbor. Love doesn't look to get one over on people. Because love is never about getting. Because love IS giving. For God so loved the world He GAVE His only begotten Son. Jesus GAVE His life for us, and to us. Because He wanted us to have it. Because He wanted us to be able to experience His everlasting, eternal, abundant, Resurrection Life of Love as He lives it in us, and through us, and as us. So when we look at each other, we need to stop seeing what we can get, and we need to start seeing what we can give. Seeing a need and meeting it--living out of our abundance--is the most simple and broken down way I can put it. Just see a need and meet that need. Don't work ill. Do good. Overcome evil with good. Don't fight "fire with fire." Heap flaming coals (of love) on people's heads and watch their hearts melt. Or maybe not. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how you are received. If someone isn't picking up what you're laying down, just shrug your shoulders and move on. I know I'm not for everybody. And that's ok. I just give what I've got no matter what. Love is gladly spending everything you have and everything you are even though it feels like the most you love the less you are loved. And guess what: People WILL take advantage of you. If someone knows you'll do something for them, chances are they won't hesitate to ask. Give a mouse a cookie, right? But that's ok. Spend it all. Give it all. Give it YOUR all. And then, once you've given something (or someone) everything you've got... its either enough, or its not. And either way you've done what you can do. Understand that you can't reach everybody. And be ok with that. Touch the people you can touch. Because some of the people I can't reach... only you can. We're all in this together. So just do your part. Take care of what you can take care of. And along the way try your level best to do no ill. No help and not hurt. And something doing things for people IS hurting, and not helping. Be wise. Don't enable. Know when to say when. And don't beat yourself up when you can't fix every problem you encounter. Your job isn't to fix every problem. Your job is to love everybody. Sometimes that has to happen from a distance. It just does. But that doesn't mean you wouldn't help... if it would actually help. Sometimes less is more. And as long as you're not making things worse--for them OR yourself--that's ok. I think oftentimes we make things worse by trying too hard. By jumping in when we should stand back. Love doesn't mean going crazy and running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Love means shining your light so that things can be revealed in Divine Order. If you're trying to make things go the way YOU think they should... that's not love. Love doesn't demand its (HIS) own way. The Law tried to put people in a religious box. But where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Freedom. Freedom to live. Freedom to love!