When loving our neighbor takes practice
The world is crying out for more love. It’s not always easy, especially when we feel afraid or angry. But we all have a God-given ability to cultivate qualities such as compassion, patience, and kindness.
There’s been a recent revival of the 1965 song “What the World Needs Now Is Love,” with virtual choirs bringing beautiful performances right into our homes through social media and famous artists singing it for frontline workers. It seems like just one more indication that the world – which sometimes seems to be filled with fear, hate, and chaos – is crying out for more love. And I’ve been heartened to see some of the ways that people are answering the call!
There’s a powerful love described in the New Testament and demonstrated in the life of Christ Jesus, that can be practically applied and experienced here today, too. This love stems from God, infinite Love itself. And this says to me that we can indeed rise to the occasion to not only love our neighbors, but love our enemies or those who think and believe and look differently from ourselves.
But how do we summon this love when we feel filled with fear, anger, hurt, or hate?
In my experience it takes humility, willingness, and practice. Practice? At loving? Well, yes, of course! How do we get good at anything? You can’t run a marathon or play a Mozart sonata in a piano recital without practicing or training. Jesus instructed his disciples – and each one of us, really – to love God, and to not only love our neighbor but also our enemy, as Jesus himself loved.
That sounds like something that could take a bit of practice. After all, when one of his disciples cut off the ear of one of the men who had come to take him to be tried and crucified, Jesus healed it, and he even asked God to forgive those who hung him on the cross.
I don’t know about you, but I think loving that much in the face of that kind of hatred would require digging pretty deep. And most of us will never face such extreme situations firsthand. But in circumstances large or small, to love as Jesus did would include great humility, compassion, charity, and discernment.
These Christly qualities are actually inherent in our nature as God’s children. Cultivating them just may take some practice, as it can be tempting to believe that fear, anger, and frustration are more natural or, at least, easier tendencies to fall into. But we can overcome such tendencies by leaning in to our true nature as the spiritual expression of God, infinite Love itself. And as Mary Baker Eddy, who authored a book called “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” which elucidates the Bible and Jesus’ ability to heal through divine Love, states, “No power can withstand divine Love” (p. 224).
The Apostle Paul, who spread Christ’s message that God loves each and every one of us and the command to love each other, tells us that love is patient, kind, slow to anger, and not prideful (see I Corinthians 13). Whenever I’m in a situation where I’m finding it difficult to love or even like someone, I pause to remember that I have a God-given ability to be more patient, speak kindly, remain calm, and humbly listen to another point of view. This helps me respond in a more constructive, rather than reactive, way.
With practice one’s fingers get used to striking the keys of a piano in a certain sequence, or one becomes more comfortable running longer distances. In the same way, as we become accustomed to letting God, Love, inspire our thoughts and actions, we’ll find that we can with greater ease respond with love, patience, and kindness. This isn’t a question of just being “nice.” Jesus was very firm when he needed to be. It’s about living from a place of God-impelled love.
And we can start in small ways. Step by step, as we practice expressing God’s love outward, we’ll find that we really do have the ability to express grace and love no matter what kind of situation we find ourselves in. And we’ll be putting into action more consistently that love that Jesus so beautifully demonstrated for us.
Some more great ideas! To read or listen to an article in the weekly Christian Science Sentinel on God’s loving plan for us titled “God's care is constant,” please click through to www.JSH-Online.com. There is no paywall for this content.