Ever have a thought that worms its way into your head, makes its way into your heart, and singlehandedly changes the course of your day? When a face is attached to a thought, we can allow ourselves to become completely unraveled over things like, “Why didn’t he/she speak to me,” “Why does it seem like they just don’t act the same way toward me,” “I’m sure they don’t talk to me anymore because they must know the secrets I keep about myself,” or ” They must not make eye contact with me because I have different beliefs than they do.”
We’re not living in a “For You” world anymore, to put it bluntly. We base opinions of others more on what others say about someone rather than knowing the truth of who a face really is for ourselves.
I recently discovered someone dear to me their whole life – someone I’ve loved deeply ever since I’ve known them – unfollowed me on a social media platform. Because I regularly share life with them, I scratched my head in confusion and began all of the negative self-talk, “What did I do,” and “Why don’t they like me?” I took the truth in my heart that absolutely nothing will ever change my love for them and I exchanged it for the lie that I caused the action they took to remove me from their “sight.”
When we make our worlds all about us, our love for others becomes selective.
When we allow thoughts that people don’t like us, will never like us because of how we’ve screwed up, share differing opinions than us, reacted differently toward us, chose to believe gossip about us rather than ask God to show them who we are, and on and on and on…we push ourselves to live in a space where we are no longer truly for people. When we allow thoughts of assumption to become our truth, we are no longer known by our love because our love has become conditional. Conditional love will never be a love that looks like Jesus. His love was never about Him. His love never changed its course because He assumed people didn’t like Him, disagreed with Him, or turned their back on Him.
His love knew its source, and that source was a never-ending supply, only focused on an ever-needing people.
1 Thessalonians 5:11 says, “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.” When we focus on making each other better rather than how they sometimes don’t bring out the better in us, it is there we are being a true reflection of love. The enemy will turn us against each other by using any trick – little or big. His motive is to keep us distracted, to turn us inward, and to keep us fighting so the world would never believe we actually even know the True Love. Who can you spur on today that you’ve allowed to control how you’ve loved them? People don’t dictate how we love unless we let them. Today let the Source of Love be your only guide.
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“When we make our worlds all about us, our love for others becomes selective.”. I’ll be thinking about this all day.
I have been guilty of avoiding people who have unfreinded or unfollowed me too. Jesus is gently teaching me, it’s not about me, more often it’s about something they’re struggling with. I’m called to love anyway, even when it stings, even when they avert their eyes, even when it seems they make a beeline across the store for a quick getaway. I’ve found freedom in releasing people from the expectation that they’re going to love me back. I want to love them anyway, like Jesus has loved me. 😘