If I make heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast but have not LOVE, I am just a clanging cymbal.
If I decorate my house with cute little Pinteresty Valentine stuff, but have not LOVE, I would be a noisy gong.
If I homeschool, spending all day everyday with my children teaching them constantly, but have not LOVE, I am nothing.
If I feed my children five times a day but have not LOVE, I would have gained nothing.
If I change diapers, read them sweet and wonderful books, brush their teeth twice a day, potty train, clean up their messes, teach them to clean their messes, play outside, take them to church, to the nursing home, to the library, give them my full attention but have not LOVE . . .
“If I had such faith that I could move mountains but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained NOTHING” (2 Corinthians 13:2b-3).
But if I do all these things day in and day out, surely that’s evidence that I do love my children! But this is not about proving a case of how much we love our children. If you think through this little list of things, you can imagine yourself doing them with a grouchy attitude and a frustrated “my-kids-are-so-unappreciative” grimace, OR you can imagine a woman who keeps loving, smiling, hugging, training her children, a woman who expects that yes, they’re going to behave like entitled little wretches until she deliberately, daily trains them to love as she loves. I want to be that woman.
Real LOVE, the God-sized love, is always self-giving in nature. As Martin Luther taught, it’s the heart curved out rather than the heart curved in on itself. That’s what Christian discipleship (including motherhood) is—a heart curved out training little hearts to curve out instead of curving in on themselves. Part of the frustration with ourselves (or with our children) is that we can’t fully “train” a heart to curve out; no, God Himself has to bend that heart right out by the power and presence of His Spirit.
A thousand times a day I make choices and have reactions that affect other people (usually three little people), and those reactions show which way my heart is curved. All that I can do is bend to Him, and He bends my heart. I’m so bad at this thing—this agape love thing—that lately I’ve been trying to bend to Him every half hour. As Frank Laubach, a busy missionary to the Philippine Islands wrote, “I have started out trying to live all my waking moments in conscious listening to the inner voice, asking without ceasing, ‘What, Father, do you desire said? What, Father do you desire done this minute? . . . Can a man working at a machine pray for people all day long, and at the same time do his task efficiently? Can a mother wash dishes, care for the babies, continuously talking to God?”*
So far, I give this every-thirty-minute thing a good effort and fall off the wagon by nine a.m. But I’m enjoying getting back on the wagon and deliberately turning to Him again.
It’s early morning, and my little ones just stumbled sleepy-eyed into my room, so to choose LOVE in this moment means I quit this writing and turn to what God has put in front of me here and now. Here goes turning to the Grace-filler throughout this day to do in me that which I can’t do on my own!
Let love be your highest goal!1 Corinthians 14:1a NLT
Happy Valentine’s Day!
* Laubach, Frank. “Letters by a Modern Mystic.” Devotional Classics. Ed. Richard J. Foster and James Bryan Smith. San Francisco: Harper, 2005. 101-107. Print.
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