The Primary learning in spiritual formation is not about how to act, just as the primary wrongness or problem in human life is not what we do. Often what human beings do is so horrible that we can be excused for thinking that all that matters is stopping it. But this is an evasion of the real horror: the heart from which the terrible actions come. In both cases, it is who we are in our thoughts, feelings, dispositions and choices - in the inner life - that counts. Profound transformation there is the only thing that can definitively conquer outward evil.
It is very hard to keep this straight. Failure to do so is a primary cause of failure to grow spiritually. Love is patient and kind ( see I Corinthians 13:4) so we, mistakenly, try to be loving by acting patiently and kindly - and we quickly fail. We should always do the best we can in action, of course; but little progress is to be made in that arena until we advance in love itself - the genuine inner readiness and longing to secure the good of others. Until we make significant progress there, our patience and kindness will be shallow and short-lived at best.
It is love itself - not loving behavior, or even the wish or intent to love - that has the power to "always protect, always trust, always hope, put up with anything, and never quit" (I Corinthians 13:7-8). Merely trying to act lovingly will lead to despair and to the defeat of love. It will make us angry and hopeless.
But taking love itself - God's kind of love - into the depths of our being through the way of spiritual formation will, by contrast, enable us to act lovingly to an extent that will be surprising even to us at first. And this love will then become a constant source of joy and refreshment to us and others, indeed it will, according to the promise, be "a spring of water gushing up to eternal life" (John 14:4), not an additional burden to carry through life, as the attempt to act lovingly surely would be.
I've really been chewing on that since I first read it. I have definitely been guilty of trying to *act* lovingly rather than *be* loving! The idea of God's kind of love being taken into the depths of my being is more fabulous that I can express! It makes me feel so free! It's not about *trying*. It's about *real* love flowing more naturally out of me as I grow. Wow. I want that.
At the very end of each chapter there are "experiment" ideas. This chapter's experiments are so excellent that I'd like to challenge you to choose one and try it today!!!
- Read through a gospel, pausing to reflect on and relish each loving thing Jesus did.
- Focus on just one loving thing Jesus did and picture his face as he did it. Maybe even put yourself in the place of the person Jesus loved for a moment and absorb that love. And then hold on to that loving look on Jesus' face as you go to sleep tonight.
- Spend a few minutes with the most loving person you know, thanking God the entire time for such a window into the heart of God standing right there next to you.
- Do some small act of service for someone you love who is feeling overwhelmed. Make his bed, clean her toiilet, or make that difficult telephone call he has been dreading.
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