Finding Love

Today we have a post from a friend of mine. He has written a post on this site before. Please enjoy this post by Kenneth Forrester

It’s okay to remind myself often that this world is not where it ends. That the pain and terror I may be feeling now will simply slip away like morning dew on a leaf. That every instant will be like smoke from the fire. Gone in the whipping wind. Evaporating as if none of it ever happened.  However, while I am still here in the devil’s domain, there are things I must wrestle with. Things I cannot avoid by using the excuse, “It’ll all be better in heaven.” I’ve seen this excuse used to avoid feeding the hungry. This fundamental fallacy that “I can’t fix it,” God will fix it all later. This lazy Christian subconsciousness plagues America.  Yes there is another life, and yes it will be better than ever, but right now things are a shit show if I may and we are still called to do some work. 

We are all split up. The world is crumbling at the hands of indifference, greed, and malice. COVID has stripped us of much-needed contact with many we love. The planet is suffering at the hands of survival of the fittest and lackadaisical mentalities at the same time. These mentalities form a safe place of ideological, economic, and spiritual inaction. People are trying to get basic needs met or just go see a doctor to no avail. Have we missed the fact that to love someone is to will the good of the other and help provide what they need?  

Depression and suicide is spiking across the board. Especially among children. Politics continues to do as it does best, to divide and conquer, and to be the pen used by the author of confusion. At the root of it all, no one is listening. No one seems to want relationships without conditions or compromise anymore. We are too comfortable in our “social” bubbles where we can control and edit everything. If everyone has a soapbox, does anyone really? We talk over each other more than ever and have to prove our point at any cost. Consider that growth comes quicker when you realize first how little you may know about something rather than how much. That may be your relationships are worth more than being “right” all the time. That your feelings being validated may have to wait sometimes in order to meet crucial relational milestones first. To accept that some people may not be ready or emotionally able to communicate or even apologize in the way you think they must.

         We have to leave room for growth. We have to get back to communicating more directly with people again. Friends and family alike. Most of all we have to work at relationships. It’s real easy to not work hard these days due to our ability to control our own social narratives and images. We need to lean on God’s understanding more than ever. God is an all-consuming fire. If you are dedicated to the fire, you cannot negotiate with the flames. Brothers and sisters, we need the refined fire of God to cleanse our pallets of the self-actualization that has been sold to us. We are complacent in accepting a counterfeit truth we ourselves write that corrupts our ability to love one another. Don’t fall for it anymore. It’s easy this day and age to sit back and do nothing. To assume “God will handle it” even if he commanded us to. Let’s stop giving God back the jobs he entrusted to us. We may long for heaven on our journey, but don’t let that desire of relief from this planet keep you from loving one another on the road there. Let us remember, love is patient and kind. To be gentle with one another. To love one another with fewer words and more actions. That there is no fear in love. That we should not worry but pray. That love covers a multitude of sins. Love never loses faith. All of this cries out from God’s word, calling us back to him. I will end with a verse from Colossians 3: 13-14

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