The other day, I found out some new things about the past of a person I knew. These were shocking things, not the things you often learn that make you say “Oh really?” but things that leave you speechless. The suffering and cruelty that this person was forced to endure were just beyond my ability to imagine. This was not some abstract experience like watching people’s suffering on the news, this was someone I knew. It left me a bit shaken.
It made me think about my life and how thankful I am for those around me and the love that encompasses me daily. Probably the only thing that sustained the person I am talking about was the love of the people around them. Without love, life is meaningless.
It made me think about the importance of the love and care that I show other people. We just never know what kinds of suffering might be hidden behind the facade of the people we know. The love that we show to them might be what helps them make it through the day or even brings them back from the brink.
It also made me think about the number of times that I have neglected to be kind to people because it was inconvenient or I was in a bad mood or maybe I was feeling self centered and just felt like other people should treat me better. It is sad, but true. I plead guilty.
We all need to do a better job of loving people. If you think about how much Jesus loves you by thinking about what He did for you, it puts our difficulties of loving others in perspective. John stated it well in his first letter: “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:10-11 NIV)
Even realizing this, it is sometimes hard to love people as much as we should. If it was left just up to us, we could never do it. As we grow in our walk with Jesus and rest deeper in God’s love for us, His love starts to overflow our lives and spill out into the lives of the people around us. It becomes easier to love. To quote the Apostle John again, “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19 NIV)
Let God’s love for you overflow into someone else’s life today. You never know just how much they may need it.
Steve Jernigan
