pour out, pour in, pour forth

Community means loving people more than you love yourself. Thats always been super cliche but I love myself a lot. Usually more than I love Jesus and more than I love the people in my classes and more than I love my best friends. I think sin means loving ourself first. Which means that no matter how hard I try or how much I do I'm never going to stop loving myself first. However, Christ loved me first. Even though I didnt love him first. That is easy to write but so hard to grasp. So hard. Because there is nothing like that here. He loved you first, whoever you are. Today in sociology the teacher said that religion is something we make up to deal with things that were not sure of and scared of and too big for us. Maybe that is what religion is. I dont really know. The only thing I know is that Christ loved us first. Before himself. And God loved us first. Surrendered his son out of his love for us. I was reading Libby Ryders blog about how shes so crazy about Ava and I think maybe thats one of the ways we are least warped in Gods image. How people love their children. How few parents would do what God did. I think about that story jesus tells where they man sends his servants and they kill them so he sends his son but they kill him too. And then I wonder what it means to die to myself. I seriously have no idea. I never go that deep or love that hard or submit to people. We live on defense. I'm still living on defense and no pretense of a life full of Christianity and service and bible study is going to change that. I'm reading acts with a group of girls and its in such stark contrast with my life. About how they heal the beggar and he clings to peter and john. There are few people that I would allow to cling to me. Theres a lot of people, almost everyone, that I would really like to maintain a safe distance from. Its not the healing. Thats totally comfortable. I want to let Christ heal through me. But if I want to heal and peace out, onto the next person, accumulating healings like its cash, thats not the gospel.
I've been super humbled by the fact that I don't produce love on my own. Well I do but its not Gods love. Its human love, which is conditional and controlled and prideful and mine. Gods love is entirely different. I was not born with it and I can not grow it in myself. But, I can be a vessel of that love. Which means first I pour out to make room for that love. Because if I'm full, like full wineskins, there is no room for God. If I'm busy, if I have my own priorities, I'm basically offering God the back seat. Like, "yeah come along for the ride, maybe offer a tip here and there but this is mine. God do what you want with my summer but theres a few things I have to fit in, and oh I don't really have time to listen to see what you actually think. Or heres my semester, but, I reserve the right to this and this and this, so you can have the rest. Or heres 20 bucks but my bank account is mine and I think I'm going to save all this money." Okay, enough of that. So pour out. Then, God can pour in. But again, that means I give him all my time and affection and know that he is so worth it. And then Gods love, mysteriously, never stays in me. Its immediately poured forth into this creation. And maybe thats what Jesus was talking about when he said "thy kingdom come" Stewards of his grace and love. That we are the only way the kingdom is coming to this earth. In our love and in our life. he said "love one another." Thats what he left his guys with. He said thats how the world will know that you are mine. By your love for one another. So if the world isn't seeing Jesus and that we are his, something has gone terribly wrong. I mean, this is huge. And I think the only response is to love Him and get to know his heart. Because I will not change myself. I cannot will myself into loving people like Jesus. But he already knows how to love them well. So we've just got to let go.