Love Is A Verb

I have been enjoying another series of the Gilmore Girls this evening. 

 

At one point, Lorelai and her daughter (who is at University), have been communicating via email.  Lorelai complains that Rory has been writing really brief emails and hasn't been including enough information:

 

She says,

"You're not even using verbs.  That's not a relationship.  Relationships need verbs."

 

Relationships need verbs.

 

As Newton Faulkner sang,

 

         "Love, love is a verb

         Love is a doing word."

 

 

Love should be something active.  Love is more than just words. 

 

It is easy to tell someone you love them, so much harder to show them.  Loving someone in actions takes effort.  It requires time and energy and compromise.  It is so much easier to simply say you love someone.

 

But God didn't just say He loved us.  He showed us His love.  He sent His Son to die for us to show us His love.  The cross is a display of His powerful, passionate love.

 

John urges this in his first letter:

"Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth."

 

[1 John 3:18 NIV]

 

It's easy to say you love someone.  But love is a verb.

 

Just As I Am

I've been having a sort out over the past few days and have rediscovered lots of my GCSE and A Level Art work.

One project that I worked on was called 'Embellish' and I looked at the way that we embellish things in life, especially ourselves - our appearances and our stories.

My sketchbook is full of black and white images (both photos and sketches), which I have painted over in bold colours and adorned with beads and sequins and fabric to illustrate the way we hide our true selves.

There is one black and white image of a naked woman which I have painted over with a bright pink sequinned dress.

In the same way that I have embellished the images in my sketchbook, we can embellish ourselves. Sometimes we feel that the naked truth won't be enough. Or we feel embarrassed or ashamed of the truth.

And so we cover up the truth with layers of embellishment. We layer on colour and beads and fabric and hide our true selves.

But God sees the truth. He sees through the layers and the embellishments and He loves us just the same.

I am slowly realising that God's love for me is not at all related to what I do or don't do. It's not related to the layers that I put on to make myself 'presentable', or to embellish myself.

It's about Him.

"We love because he first loved us."

[1 John 4:19 NIV]

As Mark Darcy says to Bridget Jones, "I like you.  Just as you are."

We have no need for embellishment or disguise, we can simply come as we are before God. And He will love and accept us just as we are.

The Antidote to Fear

I rewatched 'Donnie Darko' today. 

 

I've only seen it once before and it was a long time ago, so I didn't remember much.  It is intricate and intriguing - if not rather odd - and is all about a boy who hallucinates and feels it is his responsibility to save the world.

 

One thing that really stood out for me whilst I was watching was a scene where one of Donnie's teachers draws a continuum across the blackboard (it's set in the 80s), with 'FEAR' on one side and 'LOVE' on the other.

 

Each pupil has to read out a scenario that they have been given and mark a cross on the line to show whether the action on their card is motivated by fear or love.

 

Everything we do, she says, is motivated by one or other of these emotions.

 

It got me thinking about how love and fear are opposites.  And it also made me consider what motivates me the most.

 

I know that a lot of the time, I am motivated by fear: fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of not being good enough, fear of being too much to handle, fear of missing out, fear of being 'found out'.

 

I am not motivated by love.

 

I haven't counted, but apparently the command "Do not fear" is repeated 366 times in the Bible.

 

That's a lot.

 

I think God wants something to sink in.

 

What's more, John writes,

"There is no fear in love."

 [1 John 4:18 NIV]

 

Fear and love are, as the teacher in 'Donnie Darko' pointed out so astutely, opposites.  They are mutually exclusive.  You cannot have both together.  

 

Fear is crippling and it stems from a feeling of being unaccepted or unloved.  Love is the antidote to fear.  Not love as a fluffy fuzzy feeling, but passionate, powerful proactive love, which lays itself down for us. 

 

The same verse in The Message reads,

"There is no room in love for fear.  Well-formed love banishes fear.  Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love."

 

I don't want a crippling, fearful life.  I want a life that is "fully formed in love".

 

 

 

 

Truth and Fear

Most students become firm friends with J.B. Fletcher, Dr Mark Sloane, Poirot and the cast of Neighbours and Doctors during their time at University.  For me, my relationship with J.B. is one that has lasted long after graduation and I still find myself enjoying 'Murder She Wrote' when it's on TV.

 

Whilst we have established a strong bond, it is not often that Jessica Fletcher speaks into my life.  However, I have just flicked the TV on to find myself half-way through an episode.  I haven't yet figured out what's going on or who's been accused of doing what to whom, but today, J.B.'s insightful and deductive powers have spoken straight to my heart.

 

Whilst interviewing one woman, she said -

"Why are you so afraid of telling me the truth?"

 

Shortly followed by,

"It seems that you're afraid of telling me something.  What are you leaving out?"

 

Why are you so afraid of telling me the truth?  What are you leaving out?

 

We all have things that we don't want other people to know.  We all edit and reshape and rephrase the 'truth' to make it more palatable.  For ourselves and for others. 

 

And we can edit the truth when we talk to God, too.  We can diminish our pain or our anger or our disappointment.  We can edit out our frustration with Him, or our doubt in His goodness.  We can sugar-coat the guilt we feel and disguise our need for His forgiveness.

 

But God desires us to be truthful, in the deepest, rawest of places -

 

        "What you’re after is truth from the inside out.
        Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life."

 

        [Psalm 51:6 MSG]

 

We can be scared of God and other people knowing the real truth about us, because we fear that we will be rejected - we won't be good enough.

 

We are afraid.

 

But the Bible says,

"There is no room in love for fear.  Well-formed love banishes fear.  Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love."

 

[1 John 4:18 MSG]

 

When we begin to grasp the depths of God's unconditional love for us, we don't need to be afraid.  We can tell the true truth about ourselves to God and others - even J.B. Fletcher.