All the Problems in the World.

I suggest that every problem in the world is a problem of broken relationships, where we aren’t loving toward God, others or ourselves.

I like to talk about relationships a lot because I think that if we don’t get them right, then we have very, very little left with which to build our one and only life.

Let me lay a foundation so that I can say what I really want to say.

First:
I will summarize love as “Doing the very best thing possible towards someone”. It’s foundational to understand that love is so much more than a feeling. The way I will be using it always implies action, not feeling.

Second:
Jesus puts enormous amounts of importance on three relationships.
Matthew22:37-40 records what Christians have called for years “The Great Commandment”. To summarize it says:

• Love God a lot, a lot, a lot.
• Love your neighbor
• Love yourself

Note about loving yourself: Please don’t confuse this with ego or arrogance. Remember my definition for love is “Doing the best possible thing…” In the case of loving yourself that may mean leaving an abusive situation, getting off your a!#, um butt and getting a job, or proposing to the woman you’ve been dating for 6 years. Also note that it’s not, “..love each other instead of yourself…” It’s “AS yourself”.

Let’s think for a minute. If God were to come to earth and summarize the most important thing or things that humans should know, what would he say? Well, he did just that. In the verse I referenced above, Matthew tells us that Jesus was asked, “What’s the greatest commandment”. In other words, what is the most important action for human beings? Jesus tells us to do the best thing possible toward, GOD, OTHERS and OURSELVES.

Now back to my suggestion... I suggest that every problem in the world is a relational problem. I suggest that all of our problems are based on either an inability or an unwillingness to truly love God, others or ourselves.

LOVING RELATIONSHIPS SHOULD BE BASED ON VALUE, NOT BEHAVIOR:

God has the most value, so we should love him not because he’s bigger and stronger, or because we’ll go to hell. We should relate to him through worth-ship. We relate to him well because he is the one who is worth the most… he deserves it.

If a baby is crying and crying in the middle of the night, it’s (pretty much) universally agreed upon that shaking that baby or throwing that baby is wrong. We treat babies well because they have value, not because they behave well (think of poop, and ‘spit-up’ and, well that’s enough). Somehow, someway as people get older we loose sight of treating people well because of value and we began to treat them according to their behavior.

How many times have I (we) treated someone poorly because they were annoying us or they took advantage of us or they’re just weird? It’s easy to flip someone off during Christmas traffic jams, yet we’re told to love our neighbors. It’s important to love them, not because they behave well (they don’t very often), but because they have value.

That brings up the question, “Why do people have value?” I suggest that all humans have value because we were created in the image of God. This by no means suggests that we ARE God or a god.

People have value because no amount of darkness can erase Gods divine imprint on a life.

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Love isn’t a sissy word.

If you attack one of my kids, I will do the most loving thing possible by trying to beat your head in before you touch one of my kids. Yes, love protects.

Love isn’t a victim.

If you are being abused physically, sexually or verbally, then the most loving thing you can do for yourself is to leave and leave now. Yes, love protects self. It’s also the most loving thing you can do for your abuser… it refuses to enable destructive parts in them.

God is Love.

I suggest trying to do the very best thing toward God today. For some, that means choosing to follow his ways for the very first time. For others this means you should look for what he’s doing right now in your circle of influence and join him in that…. Or maybe spend some quality time with him.

I choose to be part of the solution, by trying hard to be better at all my relationships. If I’m not part of the solution, then I’m part of the problem.

I like to talk about relationships a lot because I think that if we don’t get them right, then we have very, very little left with which to build our one and only life.

p.s. Thanks to Dean Sherman