I struggle with this passage A LOT. I often get caught in a
cycle of trying to figure out exactly what it means to love God with all my
heart and soul and mind and strength. There are days and times when all my
heart and soul and mind and strength are needed to just get myself through the
day or event. Sometimes I barely have enough mental capacity to do the routine
in my life. Occasionally I find my mind unable to process all that it is being
bombarded with. There are event moments (honestly sometimes hours and even
days) when my soul aches and doubts assail me. And don’t get me started on the
limits of my physical strength as I find myself marching ever onward in the
realm of becoming even more chronologically gifted.
Now add to these limits and realities the second part, the
stuff about loving my neighbor and I sometimes feel unable to be a faithful
child of God. I mean how do I love some of the people in this world? How do I
look past the hatred, the blind fanaticism? How do I not hear the hurtful words
they speak and the destructive actions they do? I can love the guy that cuts me
off in traffic. I can love Donald Trump in all his insanity. I can even love
the Confederate Battle Flag waving South Carolinian. But how do I love the ISIS
believer who is training children to behead infidels? How do I love the woman who
drives her car into the water and drowns her children because she thinks they
will be better off dead? How do I love the young white man who guns down people
in a Bible study?
And what really gets me is the very last part of this
passage, that part about loving yourself. Really, in some ways and on some days
loving others as I love myself would be worst than hating them. You know what I
mean, those days when you hate yourself for falling off your diet or for the
way you spoke to your spouse or for the angry outburst you visited upon your
children. There are those days and times when you just don’t love yourself and
in fact you love others more than you love yourself. So how do I love God and
my neighbor when I can’t even love myself? How do I get out from under my cloud
of self-loathing and once again love who I am? This is the question that haunts
me the most when I am not at my best.
But don’t fear; I don’t get not lost in a pit of self-abhorrence
because I have a way to once again love me. I do something kind for myself. I
treat myself nicely. I stop beating myself up and instead do something to build
myself up. Sometimes it is as easy as listening to a favorite song. Other times
it’s a half day at the Japanese Garden or the Art Museum. Still other times it’s
a stout and fries at the local pub. A sure way to help myself feel the love is
to go to the most recent Disney animated movie or watch the Minions or the
Madagascar Penguins. And when it is
really necessary or even when it isn’t I get together with a friend to just
enjoy one another’s’ company. When I do these things I can find a way to love
myself and that helps me to once again love others.
This isn’t a fix for all that I mentioned earlier,
especially the extremists and the haters. Those take prayer, faith and a huge
dose of just trusting that somehow God will help me find a way to love them. Which
reminds me, loving God with everything I am and everything I have is really
simple if I trust what I believe; do the rights things, work for justice and
walk through my day with God at my side.
So I encourage you, do something for yourself today, find
the love and feel the love for yourself and then share the love with others!
Dear God, help me to do the rights things, to work for
justice, to walk with you. Help me love those I find unlovable. Help me find
ways to love myself. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for showing me how to
love others. Thank you for the ways I have to love myself so that I can love
you and others. Amen.
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