Today’s chapter in The Love Dare is: “Love is Impossible.” Before I even dive in and read it, I will guess that it’s about God’s agape love and how we do not have that in our sin nature to give, but as saints forgiven with our slates wiped clean and an open heart to receive it, we can own this love. This ownership is like renting or borrowing, as it’s a gift and we can channel it and give it to others. Now that I have a bead on where I think this is going, let’s see if I can open my mind to new ideas and become teachable today.
I love the way the chapter spells out specific examples of how all of our attempts at unconditional agape love fall short. Sometimes we can do a pretty good job, but fall short at the end, because it’s not in us and empowering us. Truly I want to be a vessel of that love.
You may be convinced that with enough hard work and commitment, you can muster up unconditional, long-term, sacrificial love from your own heart. You want to believe it’s in you.
But how many times has your love failed to keep you from lying, from lusting, from overreacting, from thinking evil of this person you’ve vowed before God to love for the rest of your life?
How many times has your love proven incapable of controlling your anger? How many times has your love motivated you to forgive or brought about a peaceable end to an ongoing argument?
It’s this failure that exposes mankind’s sinful condition.
I surrender!!! I’m guilty! I admit I don’t have this love as a result of my own mustering, my own creation, the result of my own determination.
Comments