More Like Christ

I love questions. Questions get me going, get me moving, get me thinking, growing, and learning. I was born with an inquisitive nature (and all my friends are nodding and saying 'wasn't she ever').

I'm not an off the cuff kind of person. When I want to figure something out in my mind, it usually takes me a few days to get to the bottom of what questions I need to know. Or when someone asks me something, I usually say the first thing that comes to my mind.. which is usually wrong and not thought through.

So I practice.

Sometimes when I have some time to think (long Huntersville car rides home), I practice asking myself questions (does anyone else do this? Just me?). In my fantasy question asking daydreams, I ask myself which celebrity I would be friends with (there's something about Jonathan Papelbon), what's my favorite food (still don't know), and who would play me in a movie about my life (Lucy from 7th Heaven). But on the serious side, it gives me time to process the moments, experiences, and relationships in my life and allows me to be disciplined to think before I respond.

This week's question: What is it that I appreciate about my friends the most? (In my head, someone has just said 'Lindsay, you sure do love the community you have. WHY??')

And I don't want to say just anything, do I?? So this week, I tossed the question around in my head a lot. I thought back to my community, times when I really needed them, what I admire most about them. I thought back to trials in my life, the push I needed that they always gave me.. and then it hit me instantly.

THEY NEVER GAVE UP ON ME.

Redeeming Love is one of the best books I've ever read. Because it's about a man who never gave up on the woman he loved. There were times I wanted to jump in the pages, slap Michael Hosea, and say 'boy snap out of it! She doesn't love you!' But what I read, what Francine Rivers wrote, was a love like Christ. A love that went to a cross for us. When we pushed and rejected and pulled away, He kept on loving because He is love. His love is sacrifice.

His love is constant. Without ceasing. Faithful.

I think back to the times when I was Redeeming Love's Angel : a broken, lost, hateful, hurt child. I know the times when I was ugly, disobedient, selfish, unloving, impatient, unwilling. I think back to the times when my tongue did not reflect the glory of God and my heart was bitter. I was angry. I wasn't listening. I ran away. I wanted what I wanted.

And then I remember my Michael Hoseas : the people who kept showing up, arms outstretched, ears open. The people who embraced me and whispered 'us too, us too, us too.' The people who didn't laugh when I stumbled, didn't get impatient when I was stuck, and didn't complain when I took steps back. Over and over again, they did the same things, they said the same things, they loved the same way.

They kept chasing me.

They showed me Christ.

They were Christ.

I wish I could give examples and tell stories, but that would be too long and that's not the point. The point is that when I expected 'enough is enough! Get it through your hard head,' I instead got,

'I've been through that too.. here's what I clung to.'

'But you're redeemed, forgiven, it's forgotten!'

'WE LOVE YOU.'

The point is.. I have an answer to my question and that answer is because my friends have been Christ. Our friends should refresh us, fill us with hope, help us exercise our faith, remind us of God's promises, remind us of what was done for us on that cross, and make us into humble, obedient, grateful followers of Christ. Every time we are with the people in our lives that matter, we should leave more filled up on Christ : more kind, more loving, more selfless. We should leave remembering that we're resurrected from death to life. We should leave more like Christ.

At the end of Redeeming Love, Angel/Sara realizes that she has seen this mysterious, loving, all powerful Father through the way Michael has loved her.

Who are your people?

Do they do that for you?

Do you do that for them?

Challenge : answer that question.