Rise part 1
In this Rant series I want to get rid of something that is commonly accepted. I don't know why I seem to do this a lot, but it's probably because for the most part I think about things differently than other people. I have my give my friend, Christie, the credit for this one though. I don't know if she came up with it, but she's where I heard it first. I'll say it like Jesus might have said it. "You have heard it said, we all fall in love. But I say to you, don't fall. Rise!" I here's my thought: love is so much more than that feeling we get when we "fall" for someone. Love is not something that trips us up, or brings us down. Love is what brings--what BROUGHT--us out of the grave! There are so many songs about tainted love--that's one right there!--about love gone wrong. About how horrible love is. But then we say things like, "It's better to have loved and lost, then to have never loved at all." We, as a species, are kind of obsessed with love. Even though we don't really seem to understand it. Even though most of our experiences with it end up "bad." There's just something about it. I believe love is the deepest desire of our hearts. At the end of the day it's what everybody wants. What everybody needs. It's why Eve was so eager to swallow the serpent's lie. She wanted to be accepted. And if she had to jump through some hoops, or eat a piece of fruit off the tree of knowledge of good and evil, then that's what she was going to do. Whatever it takes. That's what we think we'll do for love. But that's also what gets us into so much trouble. We look for love in all the wrong places. We "fall" in love--settling for something less than we deserve--and then we stay down there because we think it's the best we can do. The best we can get. Love isn't about settling though. And it's not about getting. Remember what the nature of love is? GIVING. Laying down your life for your friends. Receiving and RELEASING. Not getting something you don't have, but understanding what you do have and sharing what you do have. That's how you rise. By bringing people up to where you're at. You don't have to go down and get love. You ARE loved by the God who IS love. That's the ultimate truth of the universe. And that's what allows you--equips and empowers you--TO love. If we were seriously more focused on loving people than on getting people to love us we would be so much happier. We'd stop falling and we'd start rising. We'd stop taking and we'd start giving. We'd stop settling and we'd start... expanding? The ever expanding Kingdom inside of us would start manifesting in a very real way for us... and for those around us. We'd stop putting people down and start lifting people up. Stop condemning and start affirming. Stop fearing and start loving! Perfect love casts our fear, and we ARE perfectly loved. Which means we don't have to be afraid of love--not having it, or running out of it (giving away what we've got), or whatever. We can begin to experience it. Share it. Enjoy it. Love it!