What kind of questions is that? One I was asked this morning in a group that I am in.
It is interesting on several levels. On the obvious level, I’ve spent the last 15 years building into peoples lives and creating a community that loves those far from God. I worked a job outside of the community to support myself so that I could help build this community. I spent who knows how many Saturdays away from my family getting ready for a Sunday event, loaned money to people who’ve never paid me back, served people who didn’t appreciate it (but many who do,have and did!), and other martyr like activities that I don’t care to list. So, “Do I love people?” Do you have any idea?
On another level and maybe more significant, there are more people neck deep in “ministry” (professional, paid staff types) who are there not because they love people but they love themselves.
It is not obvious and most of the time it is quite difficult to extract this from there experience. We all need a purpose to survive. Once hope, meaningful existence exits, life as we know begins to stop. So we fight hard, (not always obvious though) to keep these ingredients in our lives.
Being involved in an occupation where people come looking for help can give one a stong sense of meaning. It validates your existence when someone asks for help, seeks advice or alludes that you might have some knowledge that they need to do life better.
The feeling that follows that encounter is a strong drug. A drug that often once tasted can become habit forming. That felt good, I matter, let’s do that again.
People in my position often enter into this life’s pursuit because along the way these encounters are greeted with affirmation and the addicition begins.
So back to the question, “Do I love people?” Again, people in my position my impertinently answer, “Do you know who you are talking to?” Or they might honestly ask the question, “What if I got the response that Jeremiah (writer of a book in the first half of the Bible who lived a life of failure yet God had called him to this life, i.e. no one listened or took his advice) did?
What if no one loved me loving them? What if the encounters were not positive, reaffirming and left a awful taste in my soul? Would I do what I do anyway?
I often wonder if the fallout of those who move toward full time kingdom building activities is due to a failure to understand that the feeling they get when they experience “success” in working with people is not so much a positive sense of meaning and purpose as a negative experience of self love. Or in other words, I love that they love me loving them and I want more of it!
Are we plagued even in our pursuits of the Kingdom with a self love rather than a willing to serve a king and his kingdom no matter what?
79 responses so far ↓
1 Hudson // May 27, 2008 at 11:50 am
Wow. I’ve been struggling with this notion lately. Am I truly compassionate about community, or am I turning community into an idol?
2 Roy // May 31, 2008 at 9:25 am
Great question. Often time the things that God gives us, people, community, etc, are things that can so easily become the object of our pursuit and replacing the one who is only worthy of pursuit. How is it that we keep from replacing the creator with the creation?
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