Loving or Just Filling a Void?

img source: http://muneera.com/2013/05/slideshow/whats-in-your-water/

When we are being kind to the one we love, what are the chances that we are merely repressed and scared to challenge circumstances and materialize our fear of isolation? When we are being patient and silent and opt to say the good words instead of the bad ones, what are the chances that we just hate changes and that we’d rather live peacefully with those we are not even at peace with? Could it be that we are merely preserving ourselves when we refuse to hurt them and try our best to prove that we are the real deal and always will be? Could it be that we are too scared of a broken relationship in the future that we’d rather have our partner be the antagonist so just in case, we won’t have anything else to think about but move on? When we try to be good to them, is it because we care or are we simply trying to keep them because they fill a void in our lives?

There is a thin line between loving others well and using them to fill an empty space in our souls. I use the phrase “love others well” because I believe we are all capable of loving; some people just don’t know how to do it well. I still fail sometimes yet since I came to know the Lord Jesus, I have learned that loving others is not enough – I should do it well. The love I give to them must be an outflow of God’s love for me. The popular way of loving though is the kind that sucks life out of somebody else, the kind that destroys rather than builds, the kind that kills rather than gives life.

We cannot give what we don’t have. The reason we are failing could be that we are drawing love out of an empty cistern. We have nothing more to give. We seem deprived of love ourselves yet we are disillusioned by the thought that we are heroes or heroines in somebody’s life, and have perhaps been possessed by the notion that our “love” is the drug they need. No pun intended.

To love well is to know what love really is. We could start with it being patient and kind according to 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. If you believe that it is otherwise, then perhaps this is not the thought you want to hear. When we love people, some may love us back, some may not but if we are to love well, the reciprocation should not be the motivation. We don’t love simply because it is exciting. We don’t love because we feel empty. We don’t love because life is a mess. We love because it is a God-given gift and privilege. We love because it is God’s command and it blesses others. We love for many good reasons and we love especially because God first loved us (1 John 4:19). He has so much love to give and he created our hearts to be capable of receiving it – we just need to open it up. 

On Suicidals

image source: http://www.thebipolarmarriage.com/suicide-prevention/

I was watching Fox Crime awhile ago and I was shocked and deeply moved by the story of this very bright and known-to-have-a-good-disposition college freshman who, having been triggered by an online group of suicidal people, finally decided to end her life.

The site was very sophisticated - complete with all the details a suicidal wants to know and should know - from the different ways of doing it to tips on writing suicidal notes.

I was struck by this line in hers (a paraphrase, of course): "We all need to cope in life. I just don't want to cope anymore."

I figured it's a wilder world in the web. Demons have disguised themselves digitally and have become very good at it. Our news on national TV are of apparent events of society - people getting killed here and there, women being abused, wars over some piece of land - but wars, commotions, battles are many within the hearts and souls of people behind monitors and in front of web cams.

The family of the girl exerted effort to help ban and file criminal cases against such sites. But like the usual case - no law could support it. 

Our failures in passing good laws against internet crimes is one thing - thinking about what the girl had to go through and what could have been done to save her is another. I wish I was there to tell her NO. 

It's not that people can not cope - when people decide it's the end, they just can't find any solid reason to keep coping. 

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If just, by any chance, you feel you're suicidal, DO NOT seek help from those who also need help. Blind people cannot lead other blind people. It's not only stupid; it's impossible.

If you're from the Philippines, this will help:

Manila Lifeline Centre 
Hotline: (02) 8969191
Hotline: Mobile phone: 0917 854 9191

Or if not:

http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28)

Fly Away

When faced with adversity, man’s most natural and easiest reaction is to run – get rid of the unpleasant by quitting. We work our way through life and sometimes we don’t like what it has to offer us. Things happen unexpectedly. We are shattered deep in our hearts and we are often helpless. Family members die. We fight with loved ones. Co-workers misunderstand us and talk bad about us. Teachers discourage us to do better. We often struggle to make ends meet. Sometimes, we do not even have a name for our turmoil. The truth is, life is not always a Santa Clause – it is sometimes more like a Grinch that robs us of things we think we deserve. Then we feel deprived. 

We run away. We quit jobs or school. We break relationships, close friendships. We relocate.

The question is: is running away the solution?

I’ve run away many times in my life. I have gone AWOL because I could no longer stand the work schedule. I’ve quit school because I decided to pursue a relationship (a bad one). Then I concluded I was a big time quitter.

But many times have I decided to stay despite of difficult circumstances - only since I allowed Jesus to be Lord of my life. Since then I recognized that my life is not my own and that He alone sees the big picture.

When I was in my second year in college, I was having some serious relational problem that made me want to quit school but God sent people and used the Bible to tell me not to. During my internship in a public high school, I also wanted to stop, but His word told me to keep going. It seemed to be the hardest thing to do at the moment but now, I am glad I obeyed. Had I really followed my own will in one of those times, I wonder where I’d be now.

Whenever I look back by remembering my past and reading through my journals, I realized how the Lord has been guiding me.

According to Charles Ringma, “Any change is never a permanent solution. Only change based on careful reflection should draw us to new places. This should be coupled with the recognition that no matter how difficult the new direction might be, it is the only path we should now walk. It is the inner certainty of the rightness of the new direction that will sustain us, not whether or not the familiar place was difficult and the new is going to be wonderful.”

The bottom line is: just because things are not going well with us at the moment does not mean that we have to run away from it. In every endeavour or journey, the first few days are the hardest. Our failures do not define our being – nor do they alter our identity. In fact, they will sharpen more the image we have of ourselves. Our decision, therefore should not be based on the difficulty of the situation, but on the word of the one who holds the map of our lives.

Jesus modelled well one of the hardest things to do in life – to wait. When mockingly asked by his brothers to perform miracles in the Festival of Shelters in Judea, Jesus replied by saying, “You go on. I’m not going to this festival, because my time has not yet come.” (John 7:8)

For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

The key is knowing God’s will because in it, we can rest easy. Often times, we short-circuit His beautiful plan for our lives when we run away from where we are now because of difficult circumstances.

Once we have the conviction that the difficulty comes from the Lord, we can be assured that He will give us the grace to not only survive it but come out a better person through it. A beautiful moth was not born beautiful. It was a caterpillar first that had to wait in a cocoon and struggle well out of it so when it’s ready, it can spread its beautiful wings and fly.