Love's Great Reward

March 23

Lord, grant that I might not so much seek to be loved as to love. - St. Francis of Assisi

Perhaps what the good saint is saying to us here is that we should be 'initiators' not 'responders.' If we wait until we are loved before we are willing to extend that precious commodity to others, the pipeline that carries it from one heart to another will certainly be clogged and no love will flow at all! Does he expect that we pour ourselves out in order to love people who are unloving? It seems he does. But the love with which we must lavish them is not the frail human variety that fades like an autumn leaf and is blown away with the wind.

The love St. Francis admonishes should become a part of our gift to those around us—both the kind and gentle of spirit as well as the unkind and harsh—is that which flows from the Lord's own heart to us. It is that amazing love that washes over us in spite of our unbelief, in spite of our inability to receive it or to requite it, that, if we can bring ourselves to embrace it to our hearts, our hearts will have in abundance to extend to the broken, bitter, empty souls around us.

Do we have a promise that we will then become the recipients of the love of everyone who is touched by Christ's love flowing from us? No, we do not, for every soul must make its choice to receive or disdain the love the Lord holds out to them and to receive or disdain the vessel He uses to pour it upon them. The one thing that remains constant is His admonition that we must love even our enemies (Matthew 5:43-48). In so doing, we will emulate the Christ who said with dying lips from the cross, "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they're doing," Luke 23:34.

When we recognize that those who would undo us, those who would cause us hurt, those who would judge us and count us guilty and deny us even salvation if they could are so bitter and blind and beyond the mercy-shadow of Calvary's Hill from which love and forgiveness flow that they cannot understand or appropriate the amazing prayer of Jesus and they cannot therefore apply it to their own sphere of experience!

Does that mean we should scratch them from our prayers? Does that mean we should withhold God's love from them as it flows from our heart? It does not. If we will but persist in allowing ourselves to be the vessels from which the Lord can pour Himself upon the lost and dying sinners among us, upon the self-righteous and arrogant who are in our midst, we will one day see the result of His promise to those who do so—and "even our enemies shall be at peace with us," Proverbs 16:7.

Perhaps this is one of the ultimate great advantages toward which St. Francis looked and aspired when he penned those beautiful words, "...rather love than be loved," for he knew from his own experience with man and with God which is the better course, which is the truest expression of the heart of Christ, and which affords the believer the greatest reward of joy.