There’s a strong sense of justice to my character that God and I wrestle over sometimes. For things to be fair and right and the same and equal are deep seated beliefs that are just part of who I am.
It’s funny though. I can freely accept on a large, global scale that sin is a part of our world and inevitably has its effect on martyred Christians, corrupt governments, and aborted babies. I can accept that “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord (Romans 12:17-19)” on a global scale, that one day in His perfect righteousness and justice, God is going to make these things right.
But on a personal level? When I struggle with a low emotional and relational return in my relationships, I start to pout and wonder why I can’t get back out of relationships what I choose to invest. Where’s my justice? Why don’t others treat me the way I treat them? Invest in me the way I invest in them? Text, call, share, invite, include?
Am I not entitled to certain privileges and trust in different relationships based on my past faithfulness and trustworthiness?
You see, I care deeply about all the relationships God puts in my life, so when I start to come unglued and off-centered from Christ’s perspective on people, on His definition of loving others, I become the very, ugly self-centered, unreasonable person I judge others to be. In my heart, I become the horrible friend I think they’re being.
Thoughts run rampant….
I did this for them, why can’t they just do…..
I was there for them when (blank) happened, is it too much to expect the same in return?
I spent money and time to do (blank), and they won’t do….
She doesn’t talk to me the way she does so and so.
He doesn’t include me in his life, the way he does that person.
I know they’re on their phone all the time, I guess it’s just my texts they’re ignoring.
Lord, help me! Even I’m disgusted at the selfishness dripping off the page above, but in my mind these ugly thoughts spin justified and dark and depressing, eating me and my joy alive. And Satan smirks in a corner delightfully tapping his fingertips together thinking, “Yes! Here she goes again! (Evil laugh)”
So how do you stop the cycle? Should some relationships in my life “owe” me? Am I justified to feel used or betrayed or frustrated that I care about someone more than they care about me? What is truth?
Truth is 1 Corinthians 13. Love keeps no record of wrongs. Love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. If there is a relationship in my life where I have been called to love, and yet feel unloved, unseen, or forgotten, I have to take that to Jesus because I can’t make another person see this.
Some people would say confront the other person. Real friends can speak truth in love and make it through to the other side. I’m not convinced this is true because at our core, we’re all sinful humans, prone to getting hurt easily and hurting others easily. I’m not saying be politically correct and walk on eggshells with those you love all the time, but I am saying go to Jesus first.
I’m saying take that relationship to Him in prayer over and over and over again until He gives you both the opportunity and the words to speak. And not your words, but His. For me, I often end up having to ask for forgiveness for my own self-centeredness before He helps me let go of the hurt and the right to expect anything from anyone.
Is that why I love them? Because of how they should love me in return? Father, forgive me!!! If God loves all of us this way, we’d be eternally screwed. I fail to return His extravagant love for me every. day. He hasn’t stopped being my Friend, yet.
So when I get in a funk, in the bad spiral, I go back to truth. The truth is I love others because Christ first loved me (1 John 4:19). It is my privilege to be a conduit of His love to the world around me. It is love that is freely given and covered by grace. Why should I not do the same for others? In a perfect world, my love would be perfectly returned, but I’m sinful and the people I love are sinful, and if there’s something we could all use more of, it’s grace.
Because at any given moment in time, I don’t know what kind of story the other person is living.
I might be feeling forgotten, but they are feeling overwhelmed.
I’m feeling unseen and unappreciated while they’re feeling like they’re drowning.
I’m having a bad day while their life is falling apart.
What we perceive to be true rarely is. Only God knows the truth and offers truth. Only through His eyes can we see what others can’t or won’t or don’t. So if I don’t submit every relationship to Him in prayer, every hard feeling, every unmet expectation, I’m probably missing something big. Something big in the other person’s life that I need Jesus to help me see. Maybe something hard I could step into with them instead of being something else hard for them to manage.
And at the end of this life, it really won’t matter if other people treated me with this same grace because the truth is, I’m not living this life for them—at least not if I’m in the right frame of mind. The truth is I love Jesus, and Jesus loves me extravagantly above and beyond what I could ask for or think to deserve or even desire; therefore, in its purest form, loving others is quite literally just the overflow of God’s love flowing into me.
So I have no record to keep because it wasn’t my love flowing out from me into others to begin with.
And the truth of that statement sits with me now like an explosion just went off in my brain because I don’t think I ever realized or believed the depth of that truth until it got typed on a page.
When it comes to loving others, God gets all the credit because He actually IS Love(1 John 4:7-8). I have no record to keep of the love I’ve given because I’ve only ever been a conduit for what was given to me first. Just a conduit, an aqueduct, an earthly vessel to carry God’s love from point A to point B.
There is freedom in this, friends! Freedom to release others of all expectations. Freedom to let go of the need for reciprocation in any relationship. Freedom to release myself of keeping score, of wondering if I’m investing too much or too little in this relationship. So much freedom!
All I have to do is keep loving Jesus most and seeking Him first at all times in all ways. This alone is hard enough without trying to take the temperature of every other relationship in my life. It’s no wonder this earthen vessel of clay breaks so often. I get to be the carrier of the love, not the creator of it.
No one owes me anything, but everyone owes Jesus everything. My prayer in this truth now becomes ever so passionately, “When others see me, Lord, may they only see You. Let me be okay being invisible if You are visible. Let the love I carry be untainted by my own fleshly desires. Create in me a clean heart, O God (Psalm 51:10). Clean my insides completely, so the love I carry is pure enough to reflect only back to You. I have nothing to offer but You, Jesus. Use me as You see fit.”
