I have been thinking lately about what it really means to
love. There are a couple of reasons for
that. I’ve been spending a lot of time
talking with a friend of mine about what it looks like to love those that are
difficult to love. I’ve also been
reading a book called “Love Revolution- Rediscovering the lost command of Jesus”. The two of them collided with each other a
bit this week.
I was
on a flight back home to
Vancouver from
Philadelphia, where I
spent a whirlwind 20 hours observing my friend
Chris in action as he spoke to an
anti trafficking group about Men and the Sex Trade. Chris gives much of his life to reaching out
to men in the Red Light districts in
Bangkok
and speaking love into their lives. I
was on the longest leg of my trip between
Philadelphia
and
Phoenix on
a completely full flight and I happened to start chatting with the guy sitting
next to me. He was a nice guy and we
basically covered all the small talk topics like what we did and marital status,
kids, pets, etc…. He asked me what had
taken me to
Philadelphia
and I told him. He honed in on the topic
of human trafficking and said that it was the second time he had heard about
that in the last couple days but had never heard of it before. We talked a bit about what that meant and
then as the flight began to come to an end, he said, well hey, you should ask
your buddy where I can find some good looking girls. I have to admit, my brain kind of ground to a
halt momentarily and then headed straight for the old familiar feelings, of
disbelief, anger, the momentary desire to pull him into the lavatory to wash his mouth out with foaming soap. He laughed it off and changed the subject and
I tolerated the rest of the flight and went on my way to catch my next
flight. The conversation stuck with me
for a bit and honestly, I was pretty disgusted.
It stuck with me for a bit. I
decided to distract myself and read some of the book I mentioned above. I opened it and the place I had left off was
talking about David and Bathsheba and how David who was called a man after God’s
own heart had broken 5 of the 10 commandments in just that one interaction
including adultery, coveting his neighbor’s wife, and killing her husband to
cover it up. It’s a familiar story and
it’s one that always reminds me of God’s love, grace, and forgiveness for my
own sin. On this day, it not only
reminded me of that but also that God loved the guy I had been sitting next to
and wanted me to love him too. I had
spent a lot of time considering the concept of loving the unlovable but that
kind of love is not a concept limited to our thoughts and philosophies. It’s an often messy, tragic, heart rending
reality that requires actual action on our part. It’s not enough to read and think and discuss
with others about what it means. You
have to be ready to do it. I wish I
could have that airplane conversation back but I can’t. I’ll be ready next time though
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