Colin Hay

"It's easy to love somebody/It's easier than to be loved. "

I was listening to Colin Hay the other day, as I often do, and was struck by the above lyric. Struck by it because what Colin was saying is quite profound. It's incredibly easy to love someone, to bake cookies for them, to buy them a book they like, to call them up when you think about them. But to be loved is an entirely different story.

To be loved is to let someone know who you are. To let them know the things they could tease you about, hate you for, be disappointed in you for. To be loved is to let them know the secret delights you have and your wishes and dreams and foolish hopes.

A good friend of mine put it well the other day when we were talking. This idea that we all deeply want to be loved for every flaw and wonderfulness that we have, we want someone to know us completely. But we also don't want the person to know us fully because we believe that if this person knew they wouldn't love us in our entirety.

And the greater the person who we find so lovely and caring, the less we want them to know us for real because then they might not stick around and we want them to stick around.

I'm ridiculous with the people I care most about. I worry about being a burden on people. When I go to another city to visit someone I always have to have some reason other than them to come to the city and will just happen to see them while I'm there. I don't want them to feel overwhelmed by the fact that I want to hang out with them the whole time, so I create "outs" just in case they don't like me as much as I like them.

But what if we let people see us for who we are, for all our quirkiness, for our brokenness? What would happen then? I think...i think we would be transformed. Our brokenness will always be with us I imagine. But why continue to allow that shame to stop us from being loved by someone, loved in a way that will truly transform us if we let it.

I think that if we let someone know our true self, with all our mistakes and bruises, we actually are freed a bit each time from the weight of guilt and shame that we carry around in our flesh. This transforming power that God has to change us when we live in the reality of his love is amazing. And as we are loved, we throw off more things that entangle us and hinder us and have a chance to live in a little more freedom.

And when we, in turn, love someone and God shows them kindness through us they are filled with joy and want to love us back even if we're messed up. And the cycle continues, loving each other, creating thankfulness for the love, wanting to love more and so on and so forth. it is a beautiful and tranforming thing.

If we hold back from allowing people to really know us, we don't change. If we hold back we continue to dwell on the fact that we are broken people because we are confirming with our actions that if anyone really knew the depth of our dark hearts they wouldn't love us. ashamed of ourselves, not worthy of love we keep a cool distance.

However, if we allowed people to really love us, to give to us without a requirement of giving back and learned to be comfortable in our own skin we begin to allow ourselves to live in the light of those that are loved. Thankfulness and grace will begin to grow in our lives because we understand how unworthy we are and how loved we are at the same time.

The reality of our brokenness will always be with us but let's not keep living in the guilty and weight of that brokenness. We're messed up, that sense of failure is brutal but......let's keep going. We need to be living realities of people who are loved. The world needs to see it and we need it. Transformed. New Creations.

Maybe this post is only for me but allow me the chance to say it aloud even if it's only for my benefit. But i hope you can resonate with what I'm saying.


IN OTHER NEWS:
A few days ago there was a Hoola-hoop show down between myself and Emily. Several attempts were made but in the end the Universal Hool-a-hoop-a-thon was won by Emily. Oh....and an important detail...Emily is in grade 1 and about 3 feet tall. That's right, i lost a hool-a-hoop competition to a gr.1 kid. she was amazing, no effort at all. but you can't feel about loosing to such a great competitor.

And we should all go stand in the warm sun, and listen to "Peace Train" by Cat Stevens. I did it. It was lovely moment.

Do you think that God is good? That he is right in the things he has done, created, caused in your life?

I have been struck by the view of God we have. I have been greatly saddened by many comments I have had people say to me because they reflect a belief that God is not good, that he desires awful situations for us.

I believe that God uses the hardness of life to teach us lessons but I do not believe that he causes destructive pain in our lives. Life is hard enough living in an imperfect world, God doesn't desire to give us more.

And yet we often believe that when life is going good, it's going to have to get hard again because we wouldn't want to get too comfortable. When we feel like life is a real blessing we believe that a depression or financial stress or pain is just around the corner because we couldn't have an enjoyable life, we don't deserve love or goodness and so really we should just get what we deserve.

But do you see what sort of incorrect view of God this is? What does it say that we believe about God if we have come to this conclusion?

Do we believe that God is slow to anger and abounding in love? That his love stretches to the skies? That we will walk through the fire and not be burned?
Or do we believe that God places us in the fire in the hopes that our scars remind us of some lesson that we have to learn? And that what God sees in us is not his beautiful creation but something that always needs work, needs to be changed and is constantly doing wrong? I just don't see that God operates like that.

I realized recently that I had started to believe that it was wrong to desire good, fruitful, loving relationships. That it was wrong to pray for a good place to live next year, that it was wrong to desire that it would be a good experience, one that builds and encourages me. I had begun to believe that every experience was going to be hard, destructive and the like. That I have all these things that are wrong with me that need to be made right and the only way for them to be made right is through hard circumstances. That we have to stay in awful abusive relationships, hard destructive situations, caring for people in a way that allows ourselves to be destroyed by their harshness. And of course we don't say anything to them or work to change the situation because this is what God wants for us, to give and be destroyed by the world. We don't see ourselves as worthwhile and therefore we don't deserve any better.

Yet, what if...what if God wanted good things for us, what if he was looking at all times for chances to give us good things, peace and joy. I'm not talking about material items, I'm not talking about fame. I'm talking about loving relationships, peace and joy, hope for life. I believe he wants to give us things. And yet we walk around in lives that reflect a God that intentionally abuses and destroys us.
In Matthew 10 Jesus tells his disciples that if they are persecuted in a village they should flee. Go somewhere else he tells them, get out of destructive situations. There are other people to tell about me other places. There are other places to be.

Now, I do believe that life is just plain hard sometimes, that sometimes we have to stay in hard situations to see them through. That pain is very real and happens in this world we live in. But I believe that God gives us the strength and resilience to be in them. I just see so many people exhausted, sad, and discouraged in their lives because they choose to stay in situations or relationships that are destructive.

Jesus said that he came to give us life more abundantly. MORE abundantly. Do our lives reflect this truth, this beauty, this wonder of something more than the rest of the world lives. Many times I have spent time with Christians and just thought...man this is not how we're supposed to treat each other. Am I supposed to feel encouraged or discouraged after spending time with people who know Jesus?
And then i have spent time with people where I leave feeling so encouraged, so blessed, so loved and appreciated, like I was important. I loved those times, I feel like myself, like I can do this living thing, this Jesus thing in the world.

And if some flawed Christian individuals can make me feel encouraged, loved and important...then shouldn't a relationship with God do so much more? I believe the answer is yes.

So my thoughts today are: it isn't wrong to get out a situation that is destroying you, to take a break from someone who is destructive to have in your life, to find new people to spend time with if those you are with pull you farther from an understanding of a loving God.

"Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands hang limp. The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." Zeph 3:16-17

Note the words in this verse.."delight" "love" "rejoice". This is the beauty of grace. This is how he sees us even if we are messed up, we don't deserve goodness and blessing but in the beauty of his mercy and grace he gives them to us. Don't taint or destroy this gift he offers because you see yourself as not good enough. Humble your heart to accept his beauty into your life.