Learning Love Part 2...Have We Got it Backwards?

Paradigms. Mine seem to be shifting lately. Has something to do with asking Father to teach me His way of love. A prayer I said in brokenness and with a contrite heart....at least I hope it was a contrite heart...several years ago. Like I said, He answers prayer.

There are difficult people in my life, me being one of them. My new paradigm is that God put them there....for a purpose....like steel honing steel....to teach me what is in my heart. The difficult people in my life reflect back to me the stuff of my heart, the good, the bad and the ugly. I'm not so sure I would have come face to face with my own selfishness, demandedness, greed, need to be control, arrogant independence, and pride if it were not for the difficult people in my life. As those difficult people kicked against the goads of my expectations, I had no choice but to try another tactic and in that desperation I finally got quiet, stilled my heart, and heard something new. The old that I had come to believe was that I had a right, I must assert, my needs deserve meeting, and who are they not to serve me in that way. The new that is shifting my paradigm is who am I to think it's about me? Who am I to kick against the goads of what God is trying to accomplish in my character? Who am I to harm the Lord's annointed? Who am I to think blessing those who curse me, praying for those who persecute me, doing good to those who harm me, is somehow not meant for me....that somehow, I am an exception?

The biggest lesson I've learned in all this shifting is David's lesson....Saul was out to get him. David never acted the victim nor the martyr. When Saul was throwing curses, and spears, and death contracts at David, David kept silent, ran away, hid and refused to harm the Lord's annointed, even when he got two chances to do so. If David acted on what everyone was telling him was his right, and killed Saul, no one would have questioned it...in fact, they would have championed it. Everyone except God that is. And that is what we have backwards. In our look out for No 1 world, those who take matters into their own hands and trample on those who get in their way are considered heros.....how many times have you heard someone talk about leaving a relationship because their needs weren't being met or they had outgrown the other person, and they tell it with a puffed up prideness? or how many times have you heard people talk about how they told off a clumsy waitress, or gave what for to their neighbour because the dog had pooped on their grass just one too many times...isn't there always a kind of glee to their tone? Why has asserting and standing up for oneself become such a honourable thing to do? I'm beginning to believe that deep down, those who yell at and are disrectful to others are only yelling for themselves....and again, this is where we have it backwards. If the God of the universe truly loves us the way He says He does, then why are we even yelling? What are we needing to prove? Who can possibly be against us, and who are we fighting anyway?

I've been making an effort, with the Holy Spirit's help of course, to live David's lesson...when my "Saul" throws a spear at me, like David, I'm not throwing one back. After all, my "Saul" is the Lord's annointed is he not and who am I to harm the Lord's annointed? Instead, I've been quiet, and like David, praying in my wilderness, trusting God to work His wonder, and, like David, I've seen God prove Himself.....God's ways are definitely neither the world's nor my ways, and they are definitely, assuredly, not backwards.