An Experience, An Orientation, An Encounter, A Way of Being, A Struggle

Today we pick up where we’ve left off.  We’ve been defining the contagious culture of BridgeWay.  We’ve been looking deep into the core values, our DNA, those values that form the foundation of all we do.  As you may have noticed, I’ve slowed down on my blog posts recently.  To be honest, I thought authenticity was difficult.  Then I arrived at today’s core value…and it stopped me in my tracks, again. 

unconditional love.  What do you do with that?  There isn’t one of us that wouldn’t admit how imposing this value is and how difficult it is to live out.  Many of us would want to say, “unconditional love is beyond me.”  I’d want to say…you are right (I’ll explain that more in a moment.)  So, if we are going to look at unconditional love, we can’t be trite or offer sweet sentimentality.  We’ve got to take this seriously…because Love is at the heart of God’s Story and the identity of God himself.  What I want to suggest to us today is unconditional love aren’t so much words to be defined as it is an experience, an orientation, an encounter, a way of being, and a struggle.   Let me explain (and I may expound on this for the next couple of days). 

1.)     An Experience:  I believe our journey into unconditional love begins with an experience of God.  In a sense, unconditional love is a value that is better caught than taught.  Those who’ve been turned upside down and inside out by the all-consuming nature of God’s love know what I mean.  God loves without limits.  God loves prior to us deserving to be loved.  God loves in a tenacious never give up kind of way.  God loves even when we have turned our back.  God loves us often in spite of ourselves.  Those that have encountered the richness of God’s love and allowed it to seep into the core of their being have started the journey toward unconditional love.

2.)    An Orientation:  Having been unraveled by the love of God, we have placed in our hearts the capacity to see the world differently than we once did.  We see the world as broken, pained, sinful, desperate, and needy.  We see it that way because we realize God first saw us that way and still loved us.  In seeing the world differently we find ourselves oriented to the world in the posture of compassion, acceptance, mercy, forgiveness…all components of unconditional love.  Instead of beginning by looking for boundaries and markers of who is loveable, our orientation believes that all are loved by God and hence loveable by us.  

3.)    An Encounter:  Unconditional love is never a theory.  Unconditional love requires the regular practice of encounter.  To love unconditionally is to put ourselves out there, willing to encounter “the other,” those most unlike us, where they are.  This encounter shifts the ground underneath our feet.  Every encounter carries with it the implicit possibility of being affected by the encounter.  We learn to love unconditionally as we practice encounter and learn how difficult some make it to love them well.  But remember our initial experience always reminds us how difficult we can make it for God to love us.

4.)    A Way of Being:  Truthfully this should have come earlier in the list.  When we began I noted that unconditional love is beyond us and I hold to that.  That should make this blog rather unnecessary right?  No.  Unconditional love is beyond us in our natural selves.  We are too inclined to choose practices of selfishness, stipulations, and affinity for those most like us.  However, unconditional love pushes well beyond that.  We are only able to love unconditionally as we are filled with the Spirit of God regularly.  The Spirit of God active in our lives becomes the source and well-spring of love.  It requires a peculiar way of being in this world.  It is a way of being that requires regular surrender and submission to the Spirit.  It means the practices of regularly nurturing our relationship with God.

5.)    A Struggle:  This should be self-explanatory and in some ways it is.  It’s tough to love unconditionally and is worked out in daily interactions and relationships that often push us to the edge.   But it is also a struggle because we have to define that love in light or our relationships.  Context is important.  Unconditional love is not a one size fits all prescription.  Unconditional love doesn’t mean we allow ourselves to be door mats for abuse.  Unconditional love in some instances requires tough love.  Unconditional love refuses to enable destructive behavior.  Unconditional love stays open to forgiveness, embrace, and mercy.  However, it recognizes the need for justice and protection of the weak and vulnerable. 

So yeah, this is a start.  I think perhaps we will look at some of this a bit deeper throughout the week.