We have a pair of very pretty but very tall bedside lamps in our bedroom which I have to grab and tip sideways to reach the switch to turn off when laying in bed – so when one of us goes to bed before the other, we leave a small battery operated touch lamp on its lowest setting so the other can see their way – and turn it off easily.
Heading to bed last night I noticed the mat was slightly caught up on the foot end… my impulse was to ignore it (hey – down to one layer I was cold) but within the same second an image of someone’s foot catching on in and smashing teeth out on the bed end flashed into my mind so I backtracked a whole 3 steps and tugged it flat again. As I wriggled into the warmth of the bed I wondered about Jesus attitude in the garden the night before the cross – and throughout that awful night. We see He was certainly not emotionless – but was He begrudging as I was in my unseen service to the wellbeing of my family members teeth? I don’t think so.
I have been on a theme of pressing deeper into the meaning of agape love. I have long understood it as ‘doing’ love. ‘Decision’ love. Love irrespective of feelings. Love without conditions or requirements. And it is. But God also asks us to love deeply, sincerely and from the heart and He’s been showing me some more of what that is and isn’t – and from some reading this morning the words ‘generously and without a grudging heart’ also came forward.
Agape is about the good of the other. Which doesn’t mean only what they think they want. Just check out your local four year old. 15 year old. 23 year old determined to marry the good-looking bad boy. The 50+ year old etc etc etc.
Agape is the actual good. Not the preferential wants. And it is done for kindness sake, at personal cost with an open heart.
What I’m thinking and writing could go in 27 directions at least, and I hope it will do so inside me, but my initial purpose was just to say how grateful I am that Jesus never begrudges what He either did, or continues to do for me. He doesn’t pull back the mat with a grunt of inconvenience. I’m so grateful for the unseen ways He flattens and straightens and smooths the places dangerous to His planned good for me (not the same as my preferences) – and the heart it is done in. I have a ways to go – but He also sees that with kindness – and there is no condemnation there.
He turns on the light for me.
He flattens my rugs.
He stays.
I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.
Isaiah 42:16