2018-05-24 — Do I Love People?

Ever since I was a little child, I’ve had a hard time saying the words I love you. I think I even remember one of the first times I said the phrase. It was to my sister Heather when I was probably 9 or 10. I remember how hard it was for me to say and that I’d maybe only said it one other time in my life until that occasion. That occasion is still locked into memory nearly 30 years later.

I still struggle to use the phrase.

Why? Why would a phrase spoken many billions if not trillions of times a year by the people of this earth be so hard for me to say?

I think part of the reason is that I have a very sensitive conscience for anything that isn’t what I feel to be 100% honest.

Perhaps you might ask, “But Stephen, don’t you love anyone?”

One would think that the obvious answer is, yes, and that’s probably true, but at the same time, it’s not as simple as that for me. You see, I’m well aware that I struggle with a deeply seated pride that is inherent to my nature. By definition, pride is the antithesis of love: It is putting myself ahead of and above others.

I see pride in my motives nearly all the time. It can be rather discouraging and disheartening. I know who I am, which means that I know that the deepest parts of my heart want to love everyone and everything perfectly, but because of the pride that I know abounds, I generally don’t feel honest saying that I actually do. The vast majority of the time, I feel like the only truly honest phrase or statement I could offer is “I want to love you.”

Boy… doesn’t that feel… I mean, can you imagine being on the receiving end of that?

“Hey, Stephen, I want you to know that I want to love you.”

I pray and plead for Daddy’s love to permeate my heart so deeply that I truly do love, no pride left at all, such that I can honestly offer that phrase to others without reservation. I strive to act as though I love people perfectly and purely, doing the things that someone who cared that deeply about them would do. My approach is a lot like the story Corrie Ten Boom relates about the concentration camp guard she ran into years later who raised his hand to shake hers. She could raise her arm. She could do that much. Daddy would supply the feeling. It is with a similar approach that I do the acts of love that I do.

It’s interesting because Daddy already knows my heart, and He already knows who I’ll become, and I already know who I’ll become; but it’s who I am now that’s the question. He doesn’t need to see me expend the effort doing the things a loving person would do in order to know. He already knows. But I need to see myself doing those things. I need to see myself press forward steadfastly, with an unconquerable determination to do whatever it takes because that’s how badly I want to love others. It is when I see in myself the true hunger and the true commitment to use all the strength Daddy has given me to act in love, it is at that point that I believe Daddy can and will change my heart, because I will know, without doubt, that I have given my all, at great sacrifice, holding back nothing. When I have seen myself use all the strength that Daddy gives me to make that great sacrifice and see myself continuing on without reservation or hesitation to love everyone, everywhere, all the time, then I will know; and I think it is then that I will be ready for Daddy to change my heart permanently. Then I will receive that incredible gift with a fullness of joy.

Were I to receive that gift sooner, prior to seeing myself “waste and wear out my life” striving with everything that I have and am to love everyone, I’m afraid I would feel cheated because I had not been able to see myself use all the strength that Daddy has given me to give my all. I want to see myself give everything, down to the last drop.

I long for the day when I can say, “I love you” with 100% surety that it is true–pure love, no pride. I long for that heart.

Until then, please be patient with me if you say you love me, and I don’t say it back to you. One day, I’ll be able to say it to you. Until then, as bad as it might sound, please know that I want to love you with all my heart, and I am working on it.

I thank Daddy for the strength He’s giving me to act on my desires to love. I thank Him for the opportunity I have been given (which has come about only because of His marvelous eternal goodness and through no worthiness or power of myself) to become as He is. It is the greatest of gifts.

Thank you, Daddy. Thank you.