Loving the one

Charlie Brown once said, "I love mankind, it is people I can't stand."

At our church, we talk quite a it about loving God and loving people.

But here's what I know:  Loving people involves loving people individually.

It's easy to speak of winning the "lost" for Jesus, it is harder to share our faith with "that one" or our next door neighborhood.

It's easy to speak of reaching out to the "world", it is harder to reach out and minister to the guy in the next cubicle.

So, let me challenge you with this:  Love that behaves like Jesus means that we look at and care for people as individuals.  As persons.

We are to see persons in a personal way, not in a "thingy" way.

We have a tendency to put people into categories - "that's "thingy", that "thingizes" them - it urns them into "its" instead of "yours".

People says, "Well, you know how southerners are."  "I do because I am not one."

"You know how Americans are or how the Mexicans, the Blacks, the orientals are."

But that's not love - putting people into categories, slipping them into little slots, generalizing them into people groups all massed-up together.

That's not love.

Love sees the person.

There isn't anybody who is a nobody.  Everybody is a somebody and everybody is a "real live people" with real hopes and real dreams and real fears and longing and desires - who is doing the best they can.

Love says, "I see you, I hear you, I know you are there.  I am aware of you. 

Yesterday, I went to a conference and after the speaker spoke, I went up to talk with him.  Toward the end of the conversation he turned to the "next in line" and beginning speaking with them, almost in mid-sentence with me.

It made me feel like he didn't care about me as a person.

It made me feel like whoever he was looking for - it wasn't me.  It made me feel like everyone else was more important than I was.

Love says, I see you as you.  I look at you when I talk to you.  I pay attention to you.  I care about you. 

I know you are there. 

So, listen to your wife and look at her when she speaks.

Listen to your husband and look at them when they speak.

Listen to your children and look at them when they speak.

Otherwise, all this "love talk" is worthless.

Just a thought for a Thursday.