Loving Imperfect People

 “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40 NIV)

If you are seeking to follow Jesus, then you know our charge is to love: to love our God, and to love his people. When I remember that every human on this planet is created in God’s image, the imago Dei, often it’s only then that my heart burns with love for them.

While it may be easy to talk about loving others, the challenge lies in making daily choices to demonstrate Christ’s love to those with whom we come into contact. Beyond that, we must examine whether we are taking active steps to love those with whom we might not naturally come into contact.

Loving Others in the Daily Routine

 If we are living any kind of active life, we come into contact with God’s created people every day. For many of us, these may be individuals who have similar interests: people at our work, our gym, our kids’ schools and activities, our church, our families, our friends and neighbors.

Perhaps we are excellent at loving in ways that come naturally to our personalities. It may be natural to engage in friendly conversation and take an interest in other people’s lives. I might take a meal when someone has a baby or feed a dog when someone is out of town. These acts are wonderful and can point to Jesus, but many who don’t follow him do those things. I believe he called us to something greater.

To love those in our daily routine more actively, I believe we must prioritize acts of love in our lives. This can mean ensuring we have margin in our lives to be able to spend unexpected time when a friend or neighbor is going through something hard. It involves digging beyond the shallow into their hopes and dreams and meeting needs when they arise. It’s inviting people into your home, even when it’s not perfectly clean, and sharing your lives and community together.

When a friend or coworker or neighbor tells you about something hard they are going through, how do you respond? Most of us would express sympathy and tell them we’ll be praying. I’d challenge us all to seek the Spirit and go further than what might feel natural. Offer to pray for them out loud right there in the moment, or write out your prayer and send it to them. Jot a note on your calendar to remind yourself to ask them how the situation is progressing in a few days. Actively meet a need related to the situation (buy groceries, offer to pick up their kids, etc.)

Loving Others Outside of our Norm

 The more challenging piece of loving others well can be seeking out those with whom we may not naturally interact. I live in a nice neighborhood a few miles from the city. I do not naturally interact with the homeless or refugees unless I intentionally step out of my daily routine.

The first step is determining your passion. There are so many needs in our world that determining where to begin can be overwhelming. God will lead you to your passion if you open your heart to his quiet voice.

I read Jen Hatmaker’s Seven: An Experimental Mutiny against Excess a few years ago. I shared with some friends that I was going to implement a few of the ideas in the book, including turning all of my clothing hangers the wrong way in my closet. As I wore the clothes, I’d turn them the right way. After six months, anything still turned the wrong way should be strongly considered for donation.

I had several others choose to join me, and then someone suggested I invite our entire church to participate. The idea continued to bloom as my husband and I had just begun a relationship with a nonprofit working to break the cycle of generational poverty in our county. What if we gathered all of the donated clothing and put on an event for this organization where women could come and have a shopping spree for free? Several ladies at our church were in professional careers, so the scope of the event continued to snowball as we added resume coaching and mock job interviews.

I read one book, talked about it, and then found myself leading a charity event we now call Searching & Shopping. We’ve hosted it annually for five years now, serving the marginalized women in our county, and this April we gave away over four hundred items of clothing. If you ask God to open your heart and show you your passion, to show you  how to love people in your community, watch out! He may do exactly that.

 

Even after five years of Searching & Shopping, I still experience doubt. I think, How did I get myself into this? Will we be able to pull it off again? Will enough clothes come in? Of course God has provided every time. When God calls us to an act of love, we can trust him to be faithful to see it through. We need only offer our willingness.

 

God may not be calling you to put on your own charity event, but I am confident he’s calling you to something outside of your daily comfort zone. We cannot outlove our God, but our world could use people who are willing to try.

You may be thinking you don’t have time. I hear you. I work a full-time corporate job, we are planting a church, and I have three children, just to name a few things on my plate. But hear me: If we don’t have time to love God’s people well, our priorities are misaligned. I periodically submit my calendar to God in prayer. I examine my commitments and my margin and ask God if they are in line with his will. I believe this is as important, if not more so, than considering where we spend our money.

God is clear: we are to love him, and we are to love people. Loving him can be easy. He’s just, merciful, and perfect. His people, sadly, are not. It’s harder to love imperfect humans, but it’s our call. I pray we all ask God this week how we can step out of our comfort zones and take active steps to love his people more fully.

Amy Wiebe is a Jesus follower, wife, mom of three, church planter, finance director, and lover of sarcasm and deep conversation with friends. She also loves camping, rafting, skiing, sewing, and having people over. Amy blogs with her husband at fringechurch.com.

Photograph © Becca McHaffie, used with permission