My daughter is a trainer in an African Country for the Peace Corp. She had a new group of volunteers and during part of the training she sent them out to live for a few weeks in homes of some of the native population. After two weeks one man told her he couldn’t go back to the family he had been living with but would have to go home. It was so hard for him to say good-bye to them that staying longer would make it even harder. To stay for two years with a family would be impossible for him to say good-bye. He loved the people so much that the pain of leaving them was too much for him. He had to go back to USA or the pain would be too much for him.
In hospitals, some parents never go see their terminally ill children because it is to painful for them. The child will live out the last days of their lives alone in the hospital because the parents love their children too much to watch them die.
Both cases are not examples of love but of selfishness. The person is not looking at the needs of someone else but at themselves. They are unwilling to bear any pain for the sake of another person’s needs. Love is not avoidance of pain and receiving warm fuzzy feelings instead. Love means to be willing to sacrifice and bear pain for someone you love.
I Corinthians 13:7 “(love) bears all things, …”
To love, whether it is God or another person, means to sacrifice and do things which might be painful. It means giving up your right to be comfortable. It means not doing what you desire but what God or someone else's desires.
I have two nieces who are going into the jungles of Vanuatu to live with people who were a short time ago cannibals. One niece is married with three children. There is a good chance of disease or accidents happening that could endanger their lives. They will live in a primitive village with few modern conveniences. This is an uncomfortable way of living where you can experience even the pain of the loss of a loved one. Why would they do this? Because they love the people, and they love Jesus enough to bear anything so that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is made known to these people.
I John 3:18 “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.”
Photo Credit: Jesus by My American Odyssey
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