love isn't money.

Come as close as You want.

Consume this heart

That longs to burn.

I know Your fire can hurt,

But I would be worse here without You.

I’m listening to Misty Edwards, breathing in and out, enjoying the beautifully golden Texas sunset God has painted on my bedroom window this evening. I can’t help but keep thinking that soon I will be back in Connecticut, missing this huge canvas of a sky that he has used these past two years to enrapture my heart. I will probably live in Texas again someday, but it will never be the same. East Texas will forever hold such a special memory in my heart because this is where God led me and allured me. It has served as my desert place, my Hosea 2:14. God brought me here, closed me off from my other lovers, grabbed me by the chin more than a few times, and made me gaze into his eyes until I understood that his stare was that of a close, loving Father and not a hypercritical judge in the sky. I’m still learning this, but I am finally sort of getting it, and it’s pretty awesome.

It’s not all picking daisies though. Like Misty sings in the song, God’s fire can hurt. Conviction is not really a lot of fun. I never really liked being disciplined by my earthly parents either, and I know they hated disciplining me! Lately, the Holy Spirit has been talking to me a lot about love. Once upon a time, I thought I was a pretty nice person. I thought I was pretty loving, you know. That’s what most of my friends would say of me-- “Kristen’s so loving.”

And then God started talking to me about it, and, well, it has been hard. Really good, but hard. Reality checks can seriously sting.

For example, I used to read 1st Corinthians 13 in a sort of poetic way. I thought the passage was very beautiful, very well-written. The love passage, so sweet and eternal-sounding. Go Paul! I looked it at kind of the way one looks at a sunset-- what a big, beautiful, and utterly untouchable thing. This ”idea” of love was like a pretty picture on a wall. I didn’t read the passage like a checklist for living. I didn’t read it like it was really the definition of love.

I don’t remember exactly when it hit me that I should be living out what it said. I know that sounds pretty stupid, but we all do it. How many times have we all been hearers and not doers of the Word? So many times, we think, “Oh, that sounds nice. Jesus said to love God with all our hearts? That’s cool. Jesus said not to divorce. Well, that’s a good ideal to strive for, but, you know, I’ll try. Let’s see what happens. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Yep, we should all love each other, indeed, yep.”

1 Corinthians 13 is beautiful, but not like a sunset. It’s beautiful because it describes the powerful nature and unfathomable character of the God we serve. Love is power. He is love and he is in us. He wants to love through us. He wants to be loved by us. 1 Corinthians 13 should be our life as people who love Jesus.

Another idea that God has used to absolutely wreck my whole way of thinking is this one: Most of us Christians are using love like currency. We are treating love like money, and this is why the body of Christ (especially in America) is one big fail in terms of reaching out to the people around us. We have fallen for the lie that love is something we “invest” in those who deserve it, those who act the way we want them to. This makes me want to cry because I have done this my whole life and still do it. I’m learning not to through Jesus, but it’s hard.

How have I used love like money? Oh, I’ll talk about it.

“Love is patient, love is kind.”

I am mostly an impatient person. When I am sitting and having a conversation with someone, half the time it is more natural for me to be selfishly thinking, “Where is this conversation going? What is this doing for me? Why won’t they get to the point? I could be doing something right now.” My dad has this funny-- I say funny, but it has really gotten on my nerves in the past, lol-- habit of forgetting what he’s talking about halfway through a sentence.

“Kristen, I wanted to tell you,” he will begin, pausing and thinking.

Ten minutes later, he’s still staring off into space and I am about to explode. What did you want to tell me?!

“Oh, never mind. I forgot.”

Now let me demonstrate how I have used love like currency. I can be very patient with people who are doing something specific for me. For example, I used to be involved in emotionally dependent relationships. (That is a whole ‘nother conversation for a whole ‘nother time, lol.) Emotionally dependent relationships would always start because the other person would make me feel particularly beautiful, or loved, or needed. When the object of my dependency would speak, I had oceans of patience. I had so much grace! Oh, she’s just a little out of it, I would think to myself. Why was I so patient? Because the person-of-the-moment was meeting an emotional need that I had. They were worth the investment of loving patience. I would get it back in full. Sad, huh? But we all love this way. It is natural.

As to kindness: It is so much easier for me to wash dishes for the girl in my house who washes my dishes too. It is not easy to wash dishes for the girl who has a habit of leaving her dishes dirty overnight and getting our whole house punished. It so much easier to invest kindness in those who will return it.

“It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight with evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

I could go on and on about this. Basically, I actually really suck at loving people and it’s only through Jesus that I could ever hope to do it. To live a lifestyle of love. Even when I think that I am loving someone, it is more often an investment that will pay off for me in the future. And that isn’t even love, because love “is not self-seeking.” So really, most of the time, I’m not loving anyone, even the people who think that I am loving them. Because it all goes back to me. Really, at the heart, I am a selfish little jerk. I am smiling a bit as I write this, but it is true.

This could be a very saddening thought, but you know what it does for me? It makes me realize the beauty of the cross. It crushes any part of me that thinks that I could ever deserve the love of God. Me, a good person? Psh. I think that’s the most ironic part of this deception we have fallen for, this lie that love is to be treated like money. I mean, imagine if God “loved“ like this. Imagine if God looked down at us and picked who he thought deserved to be shown his love through the sacrifice of his son. None of us deserve it. Imagine if he had Jesus die for those who deserved a relationship with him. It doesn’t even make sense.

Yet so often . . So often we only offer love and relationship to those we decide deserve it. We make up lists in our heads. I do it all the time. Some people seriously get on my nerves and I put them on the “Avoid At All Costs” list. (We all have one. Don’t lie.)

Thank God he doesn’t think like we do. Thank God he is the embodiment of 1 Corinthians 13. And it’s only through him that we can ever hope to even grab hold of it.

“Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” - Philippians 2:18.