Mothers Group Reflection #40: First Love
“We love
because he first loved us. Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate
their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a
brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have
not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love
God must love their brothers and sisters also.” - 1 John 4:19-21
NRSVCE
...because He first
loved us.
I never get tired of
hearing this verse. It was from the first reading in Mass this past
Thursday, and it is so packed with meaning. For many people, it is a
daily struggle to believe that God truly and really loves
them...always. At every turn, our society shows us that we have to
earn this love by being something more, by having something more, or
by doing something more. As a person who has had a lifetime struggle
in this area, I can assure you from the depths of my being that none
of these things are truly “love.” That may sound really obvious,
but I’m not convinced it is, or we wouldn’t struggle with these
things at times.
Which is probably
why it is so hard for us to follow the commandment following this
statement. God first loved us, so we are asked to love others. Not
after they do this, that or the other the way we would like them to
do. But first. Jesus sets the example for us in all things, and in
this passage of Scripture, He tells us He loved us first, and then
asks us to go love others. Because if we can’t love what we can
see, how can we possibly love what we can’t see? It takes a huge
measure of faith to love another human being, with all their faults
and failures, and if we lack that ability, when we can also see all
the good, we are hardly ready to love a being we can’t see or hear.
We will be prone to applying to God the character of others or of
ourselves.
So, how do we build
this true love into our lives? How do we begin to believe, in those
moments when we just can’t? When we feel like failures in one area
or all areas? I think a lot of the problem in loving God or others,
or in simply being loved by Him, is actually with our expectations of
what that encounter should look like and the anxiety that these
expectations create within ourselves or within our relationships with
others. Whether we admit it or not, we often form so many
expectations within our own minds of how love should look, which more
often than not, leaves us disappointed. And when we are reaching out
in expectation, we can easily miss what is right there in front of us
because we expect it to look different than it actually does. And
sometimes, we may not even know exactly what it is that we expect or
want. But God does. He knows exactly what will satisfy our soul in
each moment of our lives, even if it’s not the way we would have
chosen to go.
Don’t get me
wrong, I am not suggesting we silently put up with bad behavior from
others, only that we let go of our own will and open up to God’s
ways in the present moment, because we can only find God’s love or
that of others in the present moment. We may see how He was active in
the past, we may anticipate the future, but the relationship is a
present moment reality right in front of us. We only have to be open
to it. And when we are caught in a web of expectations, we are
anywhere but the present moment. We can be looking at past failures
and anticipating those in the present, or we can be worried about how
things will go in the future, and so we over-correct, over-analyze,
etc. in the present.
This is no where
more obvious than in family life. We are called to lead and guide our
children as they grow. Yet, I often find that when I am upset with my
children, it is because things aren’t going the way I want them to
go. I’m not saying they don’t need correction, but sometimes it
can be about my inconvenience or failure to see another way of doing
things. God is asking us to simply receive our kids how He made them,
not how we think they should be made. They all come in different
shapes and sizes, with different skills, talents, and abilities,
temperaments and needs. When we can let go of some of our
expectations, we allow others to really flourish in our presence, and
to become who God made them to be. Without the tug and pull of
personal expectations, others can truly rest in our presence and show
us who they really are, which is a very great gift to both giver and
receiver.
Which brings me back
to today’s Scripture passage. God loves us first and calls us to
love others as He loves us. God does not wait for us to do anything.
He just loves us. He loved us before we even came into being, so how
is it possible that we can ever doubt that love? There was no
possible way, given what we know about Him, that we could have ever
earned that love in any way, shape or form. It was there before we
even existed!
Can we throw away
our relationship with Him? Yes. It is possible. We can purposely
doubt His love for us so much that we can refuse to be in
relationship with Him because we believe ourselves to be so unworthy
of Him. And that is, again, an expectation on our part, not His. It
is a hidden expectation that He will reject us, possibly because we
have felt very rejected by others in life or we have even rejected
ourselves because of serious sins in the past as we looked for love,
control, etc. apart from God. But God never rejects us. We reject Him
by our choices. And we always have the choice to simply say, “I’m
sorry” and begin again. But, even in the midst of our failures or
rejection of Him, He continually loves us. He is seeking every single
moment to draw us closer to Him. He made the first move and He will
continue to finish what He started. We have to outright, clearly and
without repentance reject Him in order to end that relationship. And
yet, even then, He never once in our lives gives up the pursuit of
our hearts with the hope that we will turn back to Him again before
it is too late. He may allow some necessary consequences to bring us
to our senses, but His love is without end.
True love is given
and received as a gift. It is not earned. It does not come with a
list of expectations. It may not always look like we expect it to,
but it is real. And it is available right in front of us in a myriad
of ways. We are simply asked to be open and present and to receive
and to give…first.
Questions for
further reflection:
In what ways do
you put conditions on your own love for others or on God’s love for
you? What expectations do you carry for an encounter with God or
others? What hidden motives might be behind those expectations? I
invite you to surrender your expectations to God this week, and to
rest in the peace and the love He freely bestows upon you and to
share that love with others.
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