One day when I was in college, I left my room to get a pop and encountered the custodian. He was working on a dorm vacuum cleaner, and as I passed, he grumbled to me something about irresponsible students. I wasn’t in a very good frame of mind that day and didn’t appreciate the attack on my classmates, so I launched my own verbal counterattack. I don’t quite know what came over me that day, other than I had heard him on many occasions grumbling about us and decided I should say something in return.

I don’t know how long it lasted. Long enough for people to open their doors to listen. This was a little out of character for me, so they were all a little shocked to hear me tear a strip off him. Some people told me later I said all the things they had been thinking, but that didn’t make me feel any better in the end. I don’t really remember much of it. In truth, I have tried to forget it since it represents one of those moments when I was clearly not at my finest.

I’m thinking about this episode which happened almost 20 years ago as I reflect on our "fruit of the Spirit" character traits. We find the "fruit of the Spirit" in Galatians 5:22-23: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." This week we look at love.

Something has bothered me for a long time about the way we talk about love in church. We talk about it as if it is always a gushy, mushy kind of thing. We read 1 Corinthians 13, the "love chapter," at weddings. We remind ourselves about God’s love for us. We feel good about romance and God’s love.

Often this is as far as the discussion of love goes. We read the fruit of the Spirit and we think we have this one covered. After all, we experience warm feelings for other people. We can check this one off the spiritual "to do" list. "I’m a loving person."

But can we really? When I look a little deeper at the topic of love, I discover that it is much more than a feeling. I don’t like to read passages like Luke 6:32: "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them."

This quote from Jesus comes in the middle of a passage where he also says, "love your enemies," "bless those who curse you," "pray for those who mistreat you," and "turn the other cheek." This makes me a little uncomfortable. I don’t want to do that, I want to argue, get even, get justice.

As I write this, there are a number of people making cameo appearances on the movie screen of my memory. These are the people who are hard to love. Some are brusque and hard to get along with. Some have said or done cruel things to me or my family members, some have betrayed me. Many of them were even believers and fellow church members.

Am I supposed to have warm feelings for these people? A lot of people get caught up in this. Because we think love is a feeling, many people just throw up their proverbial hands and say, "I’m not going to do it – I don’t want to do it."

The kind of love we’re talking about is not a feeling, it is an action. God doesn’t expect me to be best friends with the man who stood in my face spraying spit as he explained to me what was wrong with me as a minister, or the boy who punched my teeth in when I was in grade 8, or even the custodian I argued with in college.

But I can pray for the people who oppose me. I can refuse to gossip about people who spread rumours about me. I can choose to forgive those who hurt me. I can be kind to people who aren’t kind. I can decide not to fight with someone who wants to fight with me.

Does this make me a pushover, weak and powerless? Tell me - does it take more or less strength to react with love when I want to do something different?

This is a higher kind of love than what comes naturally to me. It is easy to love people who love me back, but as Jesus said, anyone can do that. I demonstrate God’s love when I love those who do not love me. "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8) Think about what Jesus said to the Father while they nailed him to the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." (Luke 23:34)

"Father, I thank you that you loved me before I loved you. Help me so that love comes more naturally to me. Strengthen me so that I can love in the same way you love, even when I don’t want to, even when the feelings are not loving. Amen."

Hope this helps,

Troy

ON FIRE is a weekly letter of encouragement by Troy Dennis. This letter published May 2, 2005. www.onfireletter.com