Calvary Love

"whoever covers an offense seeks love" Proverbs 17:9


I tried to love someone once.
I wanted to love this person, but it seemed that all my attempts were met with cold responses.
After awhile, I gave up, saying to myself, "oh well, you can't win them all". I did all I could, they just don't want to be loved. Apparently.
What if someone else comes along and is successful where you aren't?
Well, it happened. Apparently, they did want to be loved, just not by me. I felt rejected, wondered what was wrong with me, wondered why I wasn't good enough.
It's very difficult to love the person who rejects you, but I had to try again.
Why?
I wish I could say because I wanted to love in the Spirit, and maybe that was part of it, a small part of it. Mostly my flesh wanted to prove to myself that I was good enough to be loved. Little wonder that all my efforts kept failing.

Then the day came when I discovered that, based on hearsay, I had been tried and found guilty of an offense that broke all trust with this person and severed any chance of recovery. At first I was distraught that she thought this of me, contemplating how horrible I must appear to her and how she must hate me. But then I began to feel offended that she had believed this report so easily. I thought that, at least as friends, she would have valued my friendship more, that she would not have been so quick to judge me guilty, to choose the side that made me the enemy. I burned at the thoughts of all the sacrifices I had made for her and her family, and this was how they treated me back!
Outraged and hurt, I told myself that I was done. This time when the Spirit convicted, I argued back. I wasn't going to push myself where I wasn't wanted. Sunday after Sunday I sat in the meeting, sharing the Lord's table, justifying my right standing, rationalizing my attitude, being civil but careful to hold back, not wanting to put myself out there to be hurt again.

Was I loving her? No, but I wasn't hating her, and therefore, I told myself it was okay. I was excused from trying so hard to love. I thought I could get away with it, that I could go on forever this way. There didn't seem to be another option. But the Lord wasn't content to leave it.

One Sunday, as I sat across from her at the Lord’s supper, reviewing in my head, once again, all the reasons why she didn't deserve my love, the Lord said to me “Look at what you are doing. You dare to sit here remembering my death for you, enjoying all the benefits of my sacrifice and at the same time denying one of my own the love I have commanded you to give. Do you think that my love for you is of so little value, that it didn't cost me very much? I never said it would be easy. No, you are not excused from loving her with all your heart. I will not accept your weak and feeble attempts at half love.” I broke down ashamed and immediately repented.

When Jesus told us who to love, he said to love each other; he even said to love your enemies. Loving the other person doesn't require, nor imply, that they have to be your best friend.

Sometimes I feel that I will never graduate from this commandment. If I had my choice, I would much rather do clean up, teach Sunday School, decorate, sing, watch babies in the nursery, than love the unlovable, than love someone who doesn't love me back.

If I withhold even a spoonful of love, if I love based on merit, on whether I believe they deserve it, than I am not loving as Christ has loved me, or as Amy Carmichael said it in her book IF, "I know nothing of Calvary love". In the introduction of her book, Amy says that one evening a fellow worker came to her with a problem that had to do with a younger sister in Christ who had lost the way of Love. Amy stayed awake all night, wondering if she had failed this sister somehow, wondering what she truly knew of Calvary love. And then, one by one, the "ifs" came to her as if, she says, "spoken aloud in the inward ear."
For years I couldn't read Amy's book without weeping over my lack of Christ-like love; it radically changed my perspective on how I love others.
I wish that I could put all of Amy's little book here, but copyright prevents it. So I'll give you a taste of a few that still speak powerfully to me today.

"I know nothing of Calvary love...

If I hold on to choices of any kind, just because they are my choice;
If I give any room to my private likes and dislikes;
If my thoughts revolve around myself;
If I cannot in honest happiness take the second place (or the twentieth);
If I cannot take the first without making a fuss about my unworthiness;
If I do not give a friend "the benefit of the doubt," but put the worst construction instead of the best on what is said or done;
If I take offense easily;
If I am content to continue in a cool unfriendliness, though friendship be possible;
If a sudden jar can cause me to speak an impatient, unloving word;
If I feel bitterly towards those who condemn me, as it seems to me unjustly, forgetting that if they knew me as I know myself, they would condemn me much more;
If monotony tries me and I cannot stand drudgery;
If stupid people fret me and little ruffles set me on edge;
If something I'm asked to do for another feels burdensome; and yielding to an inward unwillingness, I avoid doing it;
If the praise of men elates me and his blame depresses me;
If I cannot rest under misunderstanding without defending myself;
If I love to be loved more than to love;"

Then I know nothing of Calvary Love.