Inspiration

A Trip to Mars and other Impossible Possibilities

Blog_SpaceDo YOU have what it takes…to colonize Mars? And WOULD you willingly leave all you know to be among the first to populate another planet? Keep in mind, it’s a ONE WAY ticket. Think it’s impossible? Think again. 200,000 people signed up to take the leap into the great unknown. Eventually, four will be selected for the mind-boggling adventure. Sounds like the makings of a new reality TV show. Oh…it IS the makings of a new reality TV show. Surprise. What we once thought was impossible has now entered the realm of plausibility.

I always marvel at the amazing scientific accomplishments of man in light of our inability to conquer simple conflicts here on earth. We’re sending people to Mars…WOW. Impressive. Will Mars one day be added to the list of those with whom we war? Because I’d be far more impressed if we’d tackle the racial issues here on our own planet. Or if we put a little more effort into preventing World War III from erupting on our own soil.

These musings come as I close in on the finish of my 50-day journey into the topic of love. The adventure has proven more foreign to me than a trip to outer space. I realize how vast the topic is, and how little we humans know. Far less is our understanding of how to actually go about loving one another. And how impossible it is for us to love with a genuine, selfless love.

Greater than any mission conjured in the imaginations of man is the mission to love one another. God, who is love, says that all men have fallen short of this glorious standard to love. Looking at the aspects of love covered in the past 40-plus days, I cringe to see how far short I myself fall. How can I write about it if I’m not living it? My only response is to say that if I’m to fulfill this greatest-ever mission, I’m gonna need some divine intervention. We all are. Because true love is not only impossible. It’s supernatural.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you follow me, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35)

“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:12-13)

“Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.” (Romans 12:10)

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:7-8)

“But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:44)

“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.” (Romans 12:8)

“For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” (Romans 3:23)

True Love…is SUPERNATURAL (Day 44, #50ShadesOfTrueLove)

The Time-stopping Alarm Clock that Doesn’t Exist

Alarm Clock from Bing ImagesBehold, my greatest invention: a snooze button that actually stops time. Just press the button at, say, 6am, sleep in for another few hours, and still wake up at 6am that same day. You’ll never be late for work, school, or appointments. And you’ll never be tired again.

Okay, so the miracle snooze hasn’t been invented…yet. But if you find it does exist, please remember me on your gift list. Because there are days when I don’t feel like getting up.

Add to that list of things I don’t always feel like doing…changing another diaper, washing another dish, folding another load of laundry, ironing (ugh), picking up another room full of toys, and…you get the point. Daily life often thrives or fails based on our choice to do what we don’t feel like doing. Getting up each morning is not on option. The same applies to the multitude of other monotonous but necessary daily tasks. Even the most coveted of jobs involves a certain degree of unappealing, mundane routine.

It’s the same in love. In every relationship, there comes a point where we must choose to love. I’ve been married almost twenty years, and I know. There are days when it’s truly, madly, deeply, and days when we’ve lost that loving feeling. First-date feelings fade. Honeymoon euphoria evaporates. The daily grind drones and drains. But no relationship lasts without the determination to love at all times.

Relationships, like buildings, need a firm foundation to stand. While emotions are an integral part of life, they make for a flimsy foundation. Feelings evolve more frequently than a quick-change artist. Relationships that rely solely on sentiment are doomed to fail. True love goes beyond feelings. It’s a commitment to love someone whatever the cost, even when emotion runs dry. And the reward of endurance is deeply rich, satisfying, and lasting relationships.

True Love…Goes BEYOND FEELINGS (Day 43, #50ShadesOfTrueLove)

Pondering Life While Stuck in Traffic

Traffic Jam from Bing ImagesI’ve often waited in a good hour of highway traffic only to find it was due to a gapers’ delay. Miles of traffic, stretched as a crawling snake along the interstate—and all because people want to pause and look at someone else’s tragedy. What is it that draws us to the scene?

It may be that our attention is caught by the spectacle of material brevity. We see firsthand a truth long suppressed—that those things that so hold our affections could be destroyed in an instant. Beyond that is the harsh reminder of how fragile life is. We gaze at the accident site with a vague awareness it could happen to us, along with a fleeting hope we’ll be the ones to escape such a fate.

Layered beneath it all may be a degree of genuine concern. We wonder what happened, how it happened, and if those involved are okay. If we remember, we’ll check the news for updates later that day before resuming life as usual.

Our attitudes under such circumstances may translate to how we react to the tragedies we encounter in daily life. We pause, we gaze, we feel a tinge of concern…and we move on. As long as it doesn’t affect us, we’re only slightly moved, though in the end unchanged.

Love is more than gapers’ emotion. It’s not a fleeting concern or a passing feeling. It’s not drive-by sensitivity. Love doesn’t just pause. It stops. It feels deeply. And it acts.

First responders are those who demonstrate love in action—caring enough to meet the need, as in the parable of the Good Samaritan. A man lay beaten and dying on the road as people passed him by, unmoved. Only one stopped to help, investing his time, his resources, and his very life to meet the need.

God, I don’t want my love to be a fleeting emotion. I want to feel deeply, to the point I am moved to action, whatever the cost. Give me this kind of love—a true love, filled with compassion.
 
True Love…is COMPASSIONATE (Day 41, #50ShadesOfTrueLove)

Sports, Love, and a Little Thing Called Jealousy

Sports Fan from Bing Images I have to admit I sometimes get jealous of sports. It starts somewhere around the first pre-season kick-off—that tinge of dread in knowing it will be awhile before I have my husband’s full attention again. Our drive-time dialogue will be punctuated with emotion, yes. But shouts of “touchdown!” and laments of “interception” don’t always make for the conversation I crave. And just when I think it’s over come that Super Bowl holiday, I realize. It’s still a good few months until the NBA playoffs. And by then, baseball season is well underway.

Yes, my jealousy of sports may be ill founded. After all, my husband married me, not a football. Though each sport lasts but a season, I’ll be there for every season. And while there are times we go out for that much-anticipated romantic date and he’s staring at the sports screen behind me instead of looking into my eyes, I’ll be the one he goes home with at night. But the whole thing got me thinking—is there ever a time when it’s okay to be jealous?

The Bible speaks of an unhealthy jealousy—a kind that’s covetous, controlling, or possessive. Covetousness springs from discontent and ingratitude—wanting what others have for our own. Control stems from insecurity or egotism—wanting full reign over another’s life. Possessiveness derives from greed—wanting to own what was not ours to begin with. All three characteristics are rooted in selfishness. And love will never thrive in a selfish environment.

Love is not selfish, and therefore love is not ruled by unhealthy jealousy. That’s why the Bible says love is not jealous. It also says that God is love. Yet there are a few verses that mention he’s a jealous God. How can this be possible without being contradictory? When I read about God’s love for his people, it’s clear he’s not covetous, controlling, or possessive. But maybe there’s a different kind of jealousy—a kind that’s unselfish. A kind that’s protective.

In relationships, unhealthy, selfish jealousy can destroy. But healthy, selfless jealousy can serve to protect. My jealousy of sports is mostly quirky, though partly selfish in wanting my husband’s undivided attention. Yet it would be strange if I weren’t protective of our relationship when it came to something that could actually hurt or come between us.

It’s the same with God’s love. I believe it’s described as a jealous love because he wants to protect us from anything that can hurt us or thwart our greater purpose in life. Our loving creator desires our attention and affections, because in him we find that purpose. He’s protectively jealous when it comes to those habits and addictions in our lives that have the potential to destroy us, our calling, and our relationships.

Love is selfless. And love always protects. That’s why, sometimes, love is jealous—not in the unhealthy sense of the word, but in a life-giving, sheltering way that serves to reconcile and restore.
 
True Love…PROTECTS (Day 37, #50ShadesOfTrueLove)

A War Hero’s Greatest Triumph

Forgiveness Symbols from Bing ImagesAn eighth-place finish at the Olympics is a dream few attain. And it’s no small exploit to survive 47 days stranded at sea. To endure two years of cruel treatment at a Japanese prison camp is unimaginable. Yet there’s something more remarkable about Louis Zamperini’s story than any of these feats combined.

The life of an Olympian-turned-war hero is a treasure for the history books, but Louis Zamperini accomplished something greater than these other impossibilities. It’s found in the words of a letter penned by his own hand, written to the man who’d tortured him during those years at prison camp…

“Under your discipline, my rights, not only as a prisoner of war but also as a human being, were stripped from me. It was a struggle to maintain enough dignity and hope to live until the war’s end…The post-war nightmares caused my life to crumble, but thanks to a confrontation with God through the evangelist Billy Graham, I committed my life to Christ. Love has replaced the hate I had for you. Christ said, ‘Forgive your enemies and pray for them’…I also forgave you and now would hope that you would also become a Christian.” –Louis Zamperini (Unbroken)

Reading these words, I’m humbled to consider the depth of suffering and staggered to contemplate the degree of forgiveness on the part of a man who suffered so greatly. This overcoming of unthinkable trials, this forgiving of unimaginable torture is the war hero’s greatest triumph.

It reminds me of Corrie ten Boom, who after saving the many lives during World War II was sent to prison camp—there tortured and starved, there losing her family. Years later, upon encountering one of the guards who’d dealt the blows of suffering—she forgave. Or of Elisabeth Elliot, who after her husband was speared to death, returned to the tribe responsible, living among them and teaching them the way of love.

Ultimately, it reminds me of Jesus who, beaten, tortured, suffering, and dying on the cross spoke words of forgiveness to his tormentors. If I am ever to forgive the unforgivable, love the unlovable, and overcome the impossible, I look to my Savior, who went before me in the way of suffering and forgiveness. And who enables me to do the same.
 
“But I say to you, love your enemies and bless the one who curses you, and do what is beautiful to the one who hates you, and pray over those who take you by force and persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44)
 
True Love…FORGIVES (Day 36,#50ShadesOfTrueLove)

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, by Laura Hillenbrand, Random House, 2010, pp. 396-97.

When No Means Yes

Multiple Choice from Bing ImagesThere was a time when I said yes to everything. If something good came along, I was in. Looking back on how busy I was, I wonder how I even had time to breathe.

It came to the point that all the “good” I was doing crowded out the “best” I could have been doing. I was doing whatever was asked of me, yet there were desires in my heart I kept pushing to the side because I deemed them lesser things. I’d succumbed to the mistaken notion that only the weak say no.

My wake up call came when I was too physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually exhausted to say yes to anything at all. I’m grateful that season was a short one, but through it I learned some valuable lessons.

We’re each created for a unique purpose—a special, God-given task only we can fulfill. When we don’t, something inside us dies. We can do a million “good” things, but if we’re not doing the very thing we were created for, we’ll get restless and our generation will miss out on what we had to offer, whether it be our gifts, our talents, our time, or the other lives we were called to invest in.

Wisdom is learning that saying no might actually be the most loving thing we can do. It’s understanding that our no means yes to something greater, and realizing if we’re too busy to stop and love people, we’re too busy. The world will keep spinning if we say no to the lesser things. But it will miss out if we don’t say yes to the best God has for us.

“I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me.” (Psalm 57:2)

True Love…is WISE (Day 35, #50ShadesOfTrueLove)

About that Day When Everyone’s Irish

Everyone's Irish from Bing Images What do you think of when the calendar reads March 17? The color green and three-leaf clovers? Rainbows, leprechauns, and pots of gold? Bagpipes, blarney stone, and a little thing called luck?

You might not think of slavery—of a life devastated by separation from home and family. Of a young man trapped in a foreign land, bound in chains. Or of this same man, miraculously brought to escape only to willingly return to the land that held him bound, and all for love. You may not think these things, for this is the story that often goes untold.

Where I live, St. Patrick’s Day is a festive holiday for the Irish and non-Irish alike. Green-painted people roam the streets, some with tall green hats or shamrocks springing from their heads. Thousands flock to the parade and all the after-parties, sharing a toast to the day when everyone’s Irish. Even the river goes green. But are we aware of the haunting yet heroic story behind the day?

While he is often presumed to have been Irish, Patrick was actually from what we now know as Great Britain. And while he is deemed a saint, his life was not always all that saintly. His story is tragedy turned epic.

As a teen, he was taken captive by godless men and sold into slavery. At the time, he’d vehemently rejected the faith for which he is now known, but life as a slave opened his eyes to the powerful yet loving hand of God in his life. There in Ireland—far from all he knew and loved, he found the forgiveness of God. After six years of slavery, he escaped on a ship and returned to his homeland.

A few years after his return, Patrick had a vision calling him to make the ultimate sacrifice—to leave his family, this time willingly, and to return to the people who had enslaved him. I can’t imagine what he must have felt, and how he must have wrestled. To return to those who had treated him with such cruelty, and to preach a message of love and forgiveness? Only one who knew such love and forgiveness could complete such a mission. And Patrick knew.

He knew he was no saint. He knew he needed forgiveness. And he knew that forgiveness came as a result of God’s great sacrifice for him. It was gratitude for this love that moved him to sacrifice, as well—and not for those it was easy to love. He nobly sacrificed for those who had stolen his very life. And that degree of sacrifice is the essence of true love. Can we toast to that?

True Love…is NOBLE (Day 33, #50ShadesOfTrueLove)