The Love Dare, Day 14: Love Takes Delight
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The last Dare was a challenge for us to “fight fair” when fighting with our loved ones–nothing below the belt, everything above board, fighting with resolution in mind, not winning. I must admit, over this past month, this has only gotten harder to do. Lately, I’ve found myself echoing Lauryn Hill’s refrain: “Tell me who I have to be to gain some reciprocity?!” This was revealing to me because I realized that my intention in trying to fight fair or any of these other Dares was not simply to bring glory to God but mostly to establish more reciprocal relationships, ones in which I was being treated more like I felt I deserve to be treated. Though there’s nothing particularly wrong with that desire, I had to recognize that it wasn’t born from love. Love doesn’t seek reciprocity. In fact, it is opposed to the expectation of reciprocity because as soon as you don’t feel your good works are being reciprocated, you feel justified in ceasing them all together. And that, of course, is in contravention with the point of the Christian lifestyle.
While I had a bit of a breakdown recently, asking the Lord in full sincerity, “When’s it going to be my turn, Jesus?! To get some common courtesy, to be acknowledged as a person of value, to …” etc., etc., the Lord had to explain to me — again — that it is not about me. That I needed to shift my concerns to when it was going to be my turn to praise Him in circumstances that look bleak; my turn to glorify Him with a life of obedience; my turn to love His people without expectation of reciprocity from them; my turn to be fully content with HIS validation of me, His courtesy toward me, His acknowledgment of my value. He finds me sooooo valuable that He died for me! He took my sins — past, present and future– upon Himself so that I could receive the validation, the justification, the unbridled love of the God of this universe. It’s my turn to make that kind of unconditional love enough. Let’s keep it moving!
Day 14: Love Takes Delight
Today’s Scripture: “Enjoy life with the wife [or “people” for our purposes] you love all the days of your fleeting life. Ecclesiastes 9:9
Today’s Lesson: The Love Dare authors, Stephen & Alex Kendrick, use today’s Dare as another opportunity to emphasize the importance of NOT following your heart. As the Bible warns us, “The heart is deceitful, above all things.” Instead, they encourage us to tell our emotions to follow US. That means playing an active role in what we delight in and acknowledging the power of choice in our relationships. We can choose to be irritable or we can choose to be patient with our loved ones. We can choose to focus on the flaws or disappointments of the people in our lives or we can choose to remember the great qualities that drew us to those people in the first place.
It is hard to love someone solely out of obligation and it is hard to love someone when you can’t remember why you ever did. But if we make a conscious effort to first recognize that God has placed people in our lives for a reason and to then take delight in rediscovering what those reasons are, relishing in the good qualities of these people, with the help of the Holy Spirit to guide us, we can teach ourselves to take delight in each other, all the days of our fleeting lives.
Today’s Dare: Purposefully neglect an activity you would normally do so you can spend quality time with someone. Do something he or she would love to do or a project they’d really like to work on. Just be together.
Scriptures to Meditate on:
“Give me your heart…and let your eyes delight in my ways.” Proverbs 23:26
“Delight yourself in the Lord and He shall give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4
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