Love - Love - Love

For just a moment, can we shy away from our religiosity?  Can we put our traditions on the shelf and contemplate what I consider one of the greatest quotes of all time?  My wife and I are concluding our week long trip in Wisconsin; we're here on a Leadership Conference for couples in ministry (...we're having a great time, by the way!).  Tami, known in some circles as TP WonderWoman, read to me a quote from Rock Harbor's Daily Devotional.  It said this: A day lived NOT loving people is a day NOT worth living!  Love that; in fact, when my wife read me the quote it reminded me of a time in Ethiopia.  Dr. Tim, a buddy of mine, took us to one of Mother Teresa's orphanages.  Before we toured the facility, Dr. Tim told us to take off our Protestant Glasses and look at this facility through the lens of love.  You see, there were over 400 children in this particular orphanage - every child was abandoned, every child had HIV, some of which had gone into the last stages of Aids; and, every child was a unique gift to this world that simply needed...love.  What Dr. Tim asked us to do, specifically, was to notice the nuns and their dedication to be the hands, the feet, the eyes, the heart of Jesus.  Yes, that's right - these precious, selfless and humble servants not only committed their lives to service, these amazing women devoted their lives to societal outcasts.  Well, needless to say, within 10 minutes, tears began to well up in our eyes as we witnessed Jesus at work through the lives of these women, and, these outcasts of society were validated, affirmed and encouraged into relationship with a God that was and is madly in love with them.  These heroes, the nuns, took literally the quote of their leader to heart...and, every day, they purposed to LOVE...

What I find refreshing, back to the quote my wife enlightened me with, is that you and I, every day, have the same opportunities, the same potential and the same privilege to love people!  And you know, to quote from Zig Ziglar, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care!"  Or, my paraphrase of the above, "...people don't really care about my take on doctrine, my bent on theology or my interpretation of the deep truths of the Bible; they simply want to know and SEE that Jesus is real..."  And you know, they will know and SEE that Jesus is real if I embrace Mother Teresa's heart; namely, A day lived NOT loving people is a day not worth living!  May we, me, us live with intentionality tomorrow and be proactive in our pursuit of loving people with the love we've been loved with!