Sunday, January 08, 2006

Changing Power of Community Part 7

Section 7:

Being for one another.

We are gods rag dolls. He knows about our raggedness and loves us anyway.

Love is being for the one who is loved.

This is not easy to do. It doesn’t take much truth telling for me to admit that I don’t want my enemies to succeed. More humbling is the fact that, deep down, I often don’t want my friends to succeed too much.

Competition, comparison, envy- they are all anti-community.

Competition and envy cause me to mourn when others rejoice , and rejice when others mourn. They lead me to diminish others instead of building them up. They casue me to be opposed to other people instead of being for them.

Being for someone is deeper then just wanting to spare them pain. If I am really for a person, I am willing to risk saying painful things, if pain is the only way to bring growth.

True love never desires to inflict pain for pain’s sake. All too often, im not only willing to uinflict pain on someone, im looking forward to it. Probably a safe guideline is that I need to be very careful of creating pain for another person if I feel a twinge of enjoyment in the process.

And the god of the universe is for you. He longs for you to blossom and flourish. He celebrates your victories and he mourns your setbacks. He is on your side. He is in the balcony, cheering you on.

Isaiah 58

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