Sunday, July 15, 2007
real love
I do not recall ever having the desire to prove to others the existence of God. It has always seemed like a gigantic waste of time to me. People have been trying to justify their faith through proving attempting to prove the existence of God FOREVER, yet it is impossible to prove or disprove God’s existence and thus I have never bothered, despite the fact that I believe in His existence and consider myself a person of faith. What I am learning is that the best way to point toward God is to love others wholeheartedly. I am talking about the kind of love that seems foolish to people, the kind that always puts others ahead of yourself and sacrifices your agenda for the benefit of your neighbour. I am a firm believer that “greater love has no man than he who lays down his life for is friend.” Am I good at this kind of love? Hell no! Do I want to be? Absolutely. It is relatively easy to love your family/friends, those that love you in return, but it’s a whole different story to love those that frustrate you, annoy you, or hate you. My best friends, whether you’ve known me for almost 20 years or just met me recently, can name people I do not like and to whom I do not show love or understanding. Sadly, Christians historically have been long on judgment and finger-pointing and short on love and compassion. I do not want to be that kind of person.
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2 comments:
You’re preaching to the choir. I, too, find it hard to share the love with people who frustrate me and drive me beyond the boarders of tolerance. I have tried counter-balancing negative statements with nice, happy thoughts about these people, but these efforts tend not to last long. Every time I feel negative thoughts about someone, I try and remind myself that it is okay not to like everyone, as long as you respect them for the people they are.
You’re a great friend Matty, filled with both love and compassion. Don’t be so hard on yourself Mr. Perfectionist. You’re only human, like the rest of us. ;)
Jess, we may be human, but each of us has godliness within, just waiting to be drawn out.
Matty, your words are music to my (abnormally) little Buddhist ears!
It's true. There's no point in arguing over the existence of God. I remember when we had that argument years ago, and it wasn't pretty. What is important as I see it, is to acknowledge the God (Christos, Holy Spirit, Buddha nature, or whatever name you put to it) in all things and all of us. When we realize that, we're half way to real love towards all.
This love extends even to our enemies (in theory, even to Americans)! When we recognize that everyone has divinity in them, it's only natural to want to encourage them to access it on a daily basis, as their basic life condition, through respect, compassion and forgiveness. At the same time, we find that we start living with grace at the forefront of our lives too! It's win-win!
The other thing that I've found is that whenever you have hateful thoughts against something or someone, you're really only hurting yourself. You suffer the same way as when you make someone else suffer. It's not worth the pain, although it's easy to fall into that trap! We have to just keep working on it. It's called Self-transformation, Baby! World Peace, here we come!!!
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