I have always thought that the biggest way to show people God’s love is to love them.  I still think this is very true, but I had to ask myself who am I showing God’s love too.  Am I just showing love to those who are easy to love: friends, good-looking people, family, etc…  Loving those who love us or who are easy to love us is simply human.  It is in our very nature to be good to those who are good to us, so am I really showing God’s love when I poor my love on those who do the same for me?  God calls us to a greater love, a love that may not always get anything in return.  A radical love that makes no sense to a world fueled by treating others like they treat you.  It has been such a part of our culture that it is pretty much called the right thing to do.  Is it really right to say, “Well, I’ll be nice to them if they’re nice to me.”  God’s love is greater, and if we want to show God’s love like He tells us to that can’t be the way we think.  We have to love the unloving, those that don’t love us, those that hate us, our very own enemies in fact.  That is what is asked of us, and that is how Jesus loved.  In The Magnificent Defeat Frederick Buechner writes,

                  The love for equals is a human thing—of friend for friend, brother for brother.  It is to love what is   loving and lovely.  The world smiles.  The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing—the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely.  This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world.  The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing—to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rick, of the black man for the white man.  The world is always bewildered by its saints.  And then there is the love for the enemy—love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain.  The tortured’s love for the torturer.  This is God’s love. It conquers the world.

            A few years ago a man went into an Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania and killed several girls.  A few days after the shootings Amish people went to the family of the shooter and told them they had forgiven him.  After hearing this, people said these people were crazy and bad parents for doing this, but this is the exact kind of love God showed to us and wants us to show to others.  They showed a love that is only found in Jesus, a love that is so radical yet so true.

*I was inspired to write this blog by the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan, and I would highly recommend it.