After reading one of Jaeson Ma's blogposts on 365 Days of Love - I was really convicted. His desire to seek to do random acts of kindness -- sometimes for friends and sometimes for strangers -- is a very touching thing. I tried my own hand at it by celebrating "Make Somebody Smile Mondays." It was fun, but after awhile, I think that I came to similar conclusions. Jaeson Ma writes:
This year I have loved a lot of people, I have shown little random acts of kindness here and there, but in the end all those acts of love are good but they don’t really mean anything unless I know what true love is, until I am motivated from a place of love and not a place of fear, insecurity, control or pain. The more I love others, the more I realize I am not good at loving at all, because the more I try to love the more I seem to fail. This year I have failed at loving some of the closest people in my life. I failed to love them because I failed to recognize that I didn’t have love within me to start with. I am a broken man, driven by many passions, but more and more I recognize my passions are driven by fear. If I don’t love will I be loved? If I don’t give will I be received? If I do nothing will that be okay? I know the answers to these questions in my head, but it’s a whole other reality to know it in your heart, in your daily life, in your truest being. I think I am afraid to love, but the reason I took on this 365 Days of love project was because I wanted to learn how to love. Not talk about it, but be about it. Not preach it, but learn it. How can I talk about love, or teach others to love if I myself don’t know what it is, have not experienced it truly from deep within?
I was never big on New Years resolutions. Most people make up New Years resolutions and fail within a few weeks or months. My attitude about it was always -- if I don't set any goals, then I won't fail to live up to them, and I won't feel bad. But if you don't set any goals, you very well may live up to them. Or in the words of Michael Jordan -- you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
So! I have a goal this year. Jaeson Ma talked a lot about how the more he tried to love people -- the more he realized that he didn't know anything about love.
You can’t love others without first loving yourself. You can’t love yourself without first understanding God’s love for you. You can’t love God until you discover who He really is and who you are in His eyes…
So what am I going to do? My goal this year is to discover who God really is and who I am in His eyes. How is this different from any other day? You're right. I should be doing this every day of my life. But for some reason, putting a deadline helps me to run harder.
Day 1. Woke up this morning and went for a run before diving into my JT (aka Jesus Time). Nothing like breathing in the fresh cold Texas air under a bright blue sky to remind you of the beauty in which God created this earth. I started a devotional on prayer.For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. -Romans 7:22-23
I want to be good. I want to do good. I want to love the Lord my God with all my heart and with all my strength and with all my mind and with all my soul and I want to love my neighbor as myself. But at the end of the day -- I live in a world where sin and temptation run rampant.
So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. -Galatians 5:16-14
What's the answer? The answer is to depend on Jesus. I know I want to be a servant of Christ. But how can I do it? I cannot do it on my own -- of my own strength, but by the strength of God alone.
My problem is that I know these things! I know that sin is dreadful web that tears me apart from my Jesus. My struggle comes in identifying my own sin and being convicted of it. To which my prayer is no longer -- help me to depend on you in times of crisis. Instead, I pray -- Jesus convict me of my sin. Help me to know that what I cling to is the world, the desires of the flesh. Help me to recognize my sin. Only then can I even begin to understand the love of God and the depth of his mercy and grace.
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