Brother Paul Loved them All
Today’s tip: “People need love the most when they deserve it the least”
Brother Paul loved everybody, and He loved them well, even if they were not so loveable. He just loved with the love of Jesus. That’s a standard we could all strive to reach, to love like Jesus, to be like Jesus.
But we’ve got to get back to the tip and to where the rubber meets the road: How do you love the unlovable? And why would you do that. The second answer is simple: Jesus told us to love others as He loves us – with unconditional love. No strings attached. The first answer might come down to a simple word: choice.
Love is a choice. We choose to love. The feelings may come, or they may not, but love is an action, not a feeling. Some people are easy to love, and others are not. I have been married for almost 24 years, and we love each other deeply, but the feelings are not always there. The commitment is there, to love for life, but the feelings come and go. Love is a choice.
The second thing is that love is not earned or deserved. It is a gift we give to one another based on our decision to love, not based on a qualification checklist that we establish to see if someone is worthy of love or not. Love is freely given.
Unloveable people may be that way because they never received love in the first place, and they are still looking for it. We are not born mean, though some may appear to be. Maybe aggressive, but not mean. People act out when they are hurting. Whatever the cause of the hurt, the heart cannot stay unresolved. We have to get it out. Sometimes the way it comes out is ugly, it is offensive, it stinks.
None of us deserve love all the time, and all of us need it. Jesus commands us to love one another. That is why those that do not deserve our love need it. That is why we all do.
