Day 143: Walking in Love

"He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness until now.  He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him."  1 John 2:9-10

This passage highlights a truth that we ignore too many times: hatred is a gateway to many other sins.

Just at the very surface, we know that Jesus has commanded us to love one another.  It's the second of two commandments, and it seems to be a continuation of the first commandment - to love God.  We cannot walk in the light of Jesus if we are disregarding a key commandment of his.  It's very important because we need to be able to show our love in every aspect of our lives, not just our devotion behind a closed door in our houses.

Going deeper into this notion, we find that love is great because it removes any opportunity for stumbling from our lives.  We wander around, hoping to have a cure all for our problems in our lives.  Yet, here is one that is truly a solution: love.  When we hate, we put away the love that we have been shown by God.  Then, we start allowing our minds and hearts to be filled with feelings that grow in us.  These are feelings of pride, that we are always in the right; fear, that others will be better than us; greed, that we may be better than everybody else we encounter; anger, murdering everybody we know in our mind, if not in real life.  All of these feelings will grow until we have fallen so many times that we could convince ourselves that we are no longer humans made in God's image, but creatures of the Devil.

That's not the direction we need to go in.  Love is not always difficult.  If we have attached ourselves so much to the pride that compels us to hold grudges that it makes forgiveness or love difficult, then we need to evaluate our relationship with God.  We cannot be walking in the darkness of hatred and claim to be following Jesus.  We need to let go of all of these negative feelings so that we can head towards Jesus without stumbling blocks in our way.  When we truly accept the love that God has for us, then we will be able to continue in the light of Christ.

Day 029: Discerning Speech

"Righteous lips cover hatred, but those who bring forth abuse are very lacking in discernment." Proverbs 10:19

Probably one of the most talked about images or issues in the entire bible is the mouth.  We use it to speak and communicate in a way that most people who speak our same language can understand.  But our words, though on the surface they are just utterances of sound, can bring forth different meanings.  Some of the meanings are mundane, like, "I'm going to the store," or, "The dog barked."  Some of the meanings are provocative, some in the good way, and others in the bad way.

In my personal reading of this proverb from the Septuagint, I understand the second half as reading, "but those who bring forth abuse are senseless" or "are without direction".  Taking all of these for the interpretation of one word, though, can help me understand what is going on in the proverb.

Hate is something that is so easy for us to do, for we can point the finger so quickly when something doesn't go our way.  Think about how easily children say the phrase, "I hate ...".  When we grow up, we become conditioned so that we either say that phrase in a hyperbolic way, or we reserve the phrase for very choice occasions, when we truly have hatred towards something or someone (or, we want to think of it as being in that way).

Hatred separates us from those we hate.  We isolate ourselves by saying that we hate others.  And, when we start saying that we hate every single thing around us, we start to put ourselves into a little box, where we lack direction, where we can't accomplish anything.  When we hate someone, sometimes we just like to go to our little corner and burn with anger against that one person.  We waste our time we could be using to learn or to communicate to think about how much we hate that person.

So what does it mean, then, to cover hatred?  I like to think that this proverb is another way of saying, "think before you speak."  When we can take some time to think about what we are going to say, about what we hate, we can start to consider not only the consequences of our accusations, but also the other qualities in that person.  We can also start to make it a moment to learn more about our sincerest beliefs and about why they exclude that person.  Why does that guy want the room to be red while I cannot have it any other color than blue?  Why does that woman say that there is no church without the liturgy while I enjoy an altar call instead?

The moments where we are tempted by hatred are ones where God is trying to speak to us.  These are challenges of our own faith.  God is trying to help us understand how to be better missionaries, so that we can continue to spread the gospel, both abroad and in our own hearts.  When we have the opportunity to discern whether to bless or to condemn, we have the opportunity to hear God speak to us in a difficult situation.